WOMEN'S RIGHTS
An Important Overlooked Constituency
As Americans count down
to the end of the Bush administration, they know the next president
will inherit a nation rife with problems. He or she will face a war
with no end in sight, an economy
most likely in recession, an unprecedented national debt,
and a national government severely damaged by eight years of cronyism
and executive
power grabs.
The next president will also have to address the particular challenges
faced by an important segment of the American population: single
women. A report
released this week by the Center for American
Progress Action Fund (CAPAF)
and Women's Voices. Women Vote
(WVWV) details the difficulties single women face in today's economy. Forty
percent make under $30,000 a year,
less than married people or single men. Of 12.2 million single-parent
households in the United States, more than 10
million are headed by single women. "[F]or the last eight years, the
needs of unmarried women have been largely ignored," write the report's
authors, Page Gardner, WVWV founder, and John Podesta, President and
CEO of CAPAF. The next president has an opportunity to lead
and address the unique challenges single women face.
REWARD WORK TO EXPAND OPPORTUNITY: Single women still suffer
unequal pay. They make
only 56 cents to the married man's dollar.
Overall, women's median wages pay only 77 cents for every dollar men
earn. The next president should raise the minimum wage to 50 percent of
the average wage, Gardner and Podesta say. Even after last year's raise
-- the
first in a decade -- an employee working 40 hours a week at minimum
wage only earns $15,080, barely
above the poverty line for a family of
two ($14,000) and under the poverty line for a family of three
($17,600). Improving access to higher education will also help single
women close the wage gap; currently, 84
percent of single mothers do not have a college degree. Just
yesterday, the Washington Post reported that nearly 50 student lenders
-- 12 percent of the market -- "have stopped
issuing federally guaranteed loans
in recent weeks because of paralysis in the credit markets," making
it harder for single women to afford college. Addressing the
credit crisis will thus be an integral duty of the next president. With
over 35
percent of children
born to single women in 2005, single women have a large stake in
their children's future. The next president must invest heavily in
early childhood education and make universal preschool a reality, the
report states. It is a sound investment: For every $1 invested in
high-quality early-childhood education, the
estimated return is $7.
A RENEWED SOCIAL CONTRACT: The average cost
of child care can range anywhere between $3,000 and $13,000 a year
per child -- an enormous burden for struggling single women. Though
some funds are currently available for state-run
child care subsidy programs,
"the next president should make child care assistance available to all
families below 200 percent of the poverty level," Gardner and Podesta
write. Moreover, the United States and Australia are the
only industrialized countries that don't require employers
to offer paid maternity leave for new mothers, though some states do --
another issue the next president will have to address. The housing
crisis
has a disproportionate effect on single women as well, as they are more
likely to be subprime borrowers.
They also spend proportionally more on housing than single men.
"Unmarried women need a president who will make affordable housing a
priority." Finally, Social Security must continue to be part of the
guaranteed
safety net. "More than a third -- 35
percent -- of unmarried women are over the age of 50
and face retirement on their own rather than with combined savings with
a spouse," and older, single women are one of the poorest demographic
groups
in the United States. The CAPAF report recommends universal 401(k)
accounts to encourage saving, an idea economist Tyler Cowen calls "the most
likely to bring general prosperity" among proposals to address
inequality.
IMPROVED HEALTH CARE FOR ALL:
Health
coverage is a particularly important issue for women. Four
in 10 women
have a chronic condition that requires ongoing medical care -- a
significantly higher rate of chronic illness than men experience. At
the same time, approximately 20 percent of single women have no
health coverage at all. Gardner and Podesta emphasize the need for
universal health care
coverage that covers complete physical and mental health. This must
cover fair access to reproductive health options, including prenatal
care, well-woman care,
abortion, and contraception. Finally, a
strengthened and expanded State Children's Health Insurance Plan
-- twice
vetoed by President Bush -- could provide needed assistance to
single women trying to provide health care for their children.
ADMINISTRATION -- NOMINEE TO BE EPA'S TOP
LAWYER EMBRACES 'UNITARY EXECUTIVE' DOCTRINE: In his nomination
hearing yesterday,
David Hill, the nominee for General Counsel of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was asked by Sen. Barbara Boxer
(D-CA) what the EPA Administrator should do "if the President of the
United States tells him to do something illegal." "I believe that the
courts have held, Senator, that within
the unitary executive the administrator and the EPA, just
as with all executive agencies, work
for the President and are responsible to the President of the
United States," responded Hill. The "unitary
executive" theory is a formerly obscure, right-wing legal argument
that asserts that "all executive
authority must be in the President's hands, without exception."
In other words, the president has practically unlimited executive
power, and no actions of the courts nor the Congress can override it.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is a champion
of the doctrine. President Bush has used
the theory to justify at least 145
signing statements -- including those that assert his right to
ignore
laws restricting on torture, open
mail without a warrant and block
congressional oversight of military spending. Boxer's question
was not purely hypothetical. The current
administrator of the EPA, Stephen Johnson, has overruled his staff's
scientific recommendations on global
warming regulations and ozone
limits -- both apparently at the behest of the White House.
Yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) issued a subpoena
to compel the EPA to turn over documents involving communications with
the White House.
IRAQ -- GATES NO LONGER HOPES TO GET
DOWN TO 100,000 TROOPS BY 2009: Last
September, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that it was his "hope"
that there would be "about 100,000" U.S. troops in
Iraq by the time the next president takes office. Yesterday during
a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
noted what Gates had said last year and asked: "Do
you still have that hope?" "No, sir," Gates replied. Gates later
said -- with somewhat of a smirk -- that hoping is "one
of the benefits of being Secretary of Defense." Also during the
hearing, Gates
differed with President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus
on troop levels in Iraq, the LA Times notes. Yesterday, in accepting
Petraeus's
recommendation to halt troop drawdowns indefinitely this July, Bush
said he would give Petraeus "all the time he needs" to decide on future
troop cuts. But Gates "told a Senate hearing that he hoped to resume
troop reductions soon after a 'brief' 45-day pause this summer."
ECONOMY -- CONSUMER CONFIDENCE IN
ECONOMY HITS NEW LOWS: A new RBC Cash Index study shows that
consumer confidence has "dropped
to a mark of 29.5 in April, down from 33.1" in March
"dragged down by worries about mounting job losses, record-high home
foreclosures and zooming energy prices." Feelings about the economy and
financial stability also fell sharply
from a negative 41.6 to a negative 48.3, "the worst [reading] on
record." The Employee Benefit Research Institute also released a new
study
that finds that "confidence about having enough money for retirement"
dropped from 27 percent to 18 percent over the past year, "the
sharpest one-year drop"
since the group began the survey 18 years ago. The study also found an
8 percent drop in confidence over "access to employer-paid health
insurance in retirement." Consumers are not the only ones
with decreasing confidence in the economy. A new Wall Street Journal
survey of economists finds that three-quarters feel that
the "economy
hasn't yet hit bottom."
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This Sunday at 8 pm ET, CNN will broadcast The Compassion
Forum. Sponsored by the Faith
in Public Life, the presidential candidates forum will focus on "five
key issues to folks of faith:
domestic and international poverty, global AIDS, climate change,
genocide in Darfur, and human rights and torture." Sens. Barack Obama
(D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have both confirmed that they will
participate.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has
thus far declined the invitation, which is still open.
In a hearing yesterday, Attorney General Mike Mukasey said the
Fourth Amendment "applies across the board, regardless of
whether we're in wartime or in peacetime," even though the memo
by John Yoo, former
head of the Office of Legal Counsel, had concluded otherwise.
Mukasey, however, refused
to say whether that memo was withdrawn.
A Justice Department Inspector General report "on the FBI's
role in the interrogations of prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay
and Iraq has been delayed for months because the Pentagon is
reviewing how much of it should remain classified." Fine said that he
has pushed
the Pentagon to finish its review, but officials have not complied
"in a timely fashion."
"House Judiciary Committee lawyers declared that the White
House and Congress are at a 'constitutional impasse'
in a legal motion filed Thursday in federal court aimed at forcing
former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff
Joshua Bolten to testify before the panel." In the motion, the lawyers
compared the impasse "to President
Nixon's attempts to stonewall inquiries into the Watergate scandal."
Read the full motion here.
"I've told him he'll have all the time he needs,"
Bush said yesterday of Gen. David Petraeus, after endorsing the
general's "indefinite
suspension"of troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer.
During a Senate Armed Forces hearing yesterday, Defense
Secretary Robert Gates was forced to apologize to Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
for "confusion" over Iraqi reconstruction money. On Tuesday,
Amb. Ryan
Crocker told Levin that the United States was "no longer involved in
the physical reconstruction business," but on the same day, Levin
received a letter from the Pentagon about "a
coming shift of $600 million to pay for Iraqi reconstruction."
And finally: A photograph
of Vice President Cheney wearing sunglasses while fly-fishing
in Idaho has caused a stir on the Internet, "fueled by speculation
about what is being reflected in his sunglasses." ABC News notes that
within 48 hours, the picture had "been posted,
linked, enlarged, enhanced
on dozens of Web sites." Guesses on the image in his lenses ranged from
a naked alien, Osama bin Laden, and a "woman in her birthday suit."
Cheney's spokeswoman, however, said the image is nothing more than an
arm casting a reel. (See an enlarged version of the photo here.) |
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The research team that brings you The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org needs summer interns! Click here for more information.
HAWAII:
Maui is facing $4 per gallon gasoline.
MISSOURI:
"A bill increasing requirements on local law enforcement agencies to
enforce immigration law and verify legal status won approval Thursday
in the Missouri House."
ILLINOIS: State
House blocks tax increase on richest residents.
THINK
PROGRESS: Gen. Colin Powell: Troops are "very, very stretched."
WONK
ROOM: Disturbing trends in income inequality.
MEDIA
MATTERS: Neal Boortz on his inability to use a floor buffer: "I
would make a lousy Mexican."
WASHINGTON
WIRE: Gen. David Petraeus says he's "not aware" of an Iran-al Qaeda
link.
"[I]n a best-case scenario, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says there
would still be about 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq when the next
president of the United States is sworn in on January 20, 2009."
-- ABC News, 9/14/07
VERSUS
Q: "[Y]ou hoped that we could get down to 100,000 troops in Iraq by
January of '09. Do you still have that hope?"
GATES: "No, sir."
-- Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing, 4/10/08
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