SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey recently appeared on WIS-TV’s Awareness show to talk about the racial profiling study the Network completed in January, as well as the legislation we’ve been advocating for several years. He was joined on the program by Sheriff Leon Lott.
Click below to view.
As part of a national effort led by the AFL-CIO, labor supporters held a lunch-time informational picket in front of Wells Fargo/Wachovia’s Columbia headquarters. Members of the SC Progressive Network joined the SC AFL-CIO, SC Alliance for Retired Americans (our newest Network member) and the Central Labor Council in passing out fliers and talking to passersby about the bank’s practices.
“America needs 11 million jobs, and big Wall Street banks should pay to rebuild jobs and the economy they helped destroy,” said Jenny Patterson, President of the Columbia Central Labor Council.
Since the recession began, America has lost nearly nine million jobs when we needed to create more than 2 million just to stay even. While Americans have lost jobs, homes, retirement savings and hope, Wall Street banks took billions in taxpayer bailouts and gave executives some $145 billion in 2009 pay and bonuses. Now they’re spending millions lobbying to kill financial reform.
The AFL-CIO is calling for a major jobs plan to extend unemployment
insurance benefits, food assistance and health benefits; rebuild our crumbling infrastructure; increase aid to state and local governments to save critical services and jobs; increase funding for neglected communities to match people who need jobs with work that needs to be done; and use TARP money to get credit flowing to small businesses for job creation.
What you should know:
* Wells Fargo/Wachovia got a $25 billion taxpayer bailout.
* Wells Fargo/Wachovia paid CEO John Stumpf $21.3 million last year.
* Wells Fargo/Wachovia spent $2.9 million on lobbying last year to kill financial reforms.
SOURCES: Company SEC filings, The New York Times, Center for Responsive Politics
View more photos by clicking here.
By Beth Richardson
Columbia attorney with Tell Them, an e-advocacy network supported by the New Morning Foundation, a member of the SC Progressive Network
The Legislature faces the unenviable task of finding ways to reconcile the state’s budget while continuing to provide meaningful services to its citizens. What many lawmakers do not see, however, is the great opportunity to achieve a documented 17:1 return on investment simply by restoring funding for family planning services.
Births to teen mothers in South Carolina cost taxpayers upwards of $156 million annually. (In Richland and Lexington counties alone, that number reaches $15 million.) We have the eighth-highest rate of pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-olds in the nation, and our state’s teen pregnancy rates are on the rise. In some rural counties, the rates can be as high as 200 pregnancies per 1,000 young women ages 18 to 19. Why? They have received virtually no family planning education in school, and due to a series of state budget cuts, they have no access to contraceptive counseling and clinical services in their isolated rural communities.
A state’s money invested in family planning services offers a strong return on investment and represents sound fiscal policy. A cost-benefit analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa found that in as little as five years, a state can save $17 for every tax dollar invested in programs and clinics that help prevent unintended pregnancies among 14- to 19-year-olds.
Of course economics are only one part of the equation. Restoring state funding for family planning services will mean fewer unintended pregnancies, so fewer children will be born into situations where they will be at greater risk of child abuse or neglect.
Here is what we know: Children born to mothers age 15 and younger are twice as likely to be abused or neglected in the first five years of their lives than are the children born to mothers ages 20 to 21. They are more likely to grow up in a poor and mother-only family, to live in an impoverished or underprivileged neighborhood and to suffer high risks to both their health status and potential school achievement. Poverty, inadequate social support, mothers’ lack of education, mothers’ cognitive immaturity and greater maternal stress all have been suggested as possible factors contributing to unsatisfactory social and educational outcomes for the children of teen mothers, many of whom never were intended.
One in four children and nearly half of single-mother families are expected to be poor in 2011. Making further progress in reducing teen pregnancy will benefit the national and state economies as well as improve the educational, health and social prospects for this generation of young people and the next.
On March 23, thousands of South Carolinians are taking part in our state’s first-ever virtual march on the State House. They believe, as we do, that one of the most fiscally responsible actions our Legislature can take is to properly fund age-appropriate reproductive health education and access to services for all South Carolinians. By protecting all children and young adults now, we can save millions of dollars in public health care and welfare services in the future.
It’s our responsibility to stand together on behalf of all these young people, so that each of them can have the opportunity for a future that is bright and healthy. We must take a long view, and invest in programs that will make South Carolina a healthier state.
