We are in a painful recession.  Too often it seems like DC hears more about the concern of billionaires who don’t want to lose their tax cuts, and too little about the parent of two who works long hours and barely is getting by.  And yet Congress votes on whether the billionaire will have more, and whether the working class parent will lose his or her job.  These are the votes presently occurring, and which are being treated like a drawn out political game.

The proposed Federal budget cuts are turning into another political sideshow. The process of the budget is being treated as a chess game, a battle over politics and procedure, and one that may go on for a long time still, narrated by talking heads throughout.

If you are an American in need of a job, or one afraid that your job will be cut in the budget proposals, it isn’t just a DC soap opera.  The reverberations of the proposed cuts are drastic and personal.  States and cities throughout the country feel the impact of the cuts through the stories of those waiting with every news cycle to hear whether their job, or hope of a job, will be slashed.

The City of Los Angeles is a perfect example of this harm.  Los Angeles is already affected by the recession with a whopping 14.5% unemployment.

The proposed federal budget cuts are not abstract to Los Angeles.  They would eliminate funding for job creation projects, projects needed to help Vets find work, and they could wipe out training services for youth hoping to find skills, or the homeless, hoping to break the cycle of poverty.

In Los Angeles, the community is not sitting back and letting these proposed cuts happen without a fight.  Next Wednesday, March 23rd, Angelinos will rally at the Federal Building in Downtown Los Angeles to say no to such cuts.  Cutting jobs is not the answer to recession budgeting.  It’s time that our government prioritized working people over billionaires.  

If democracy is to work, we have to hope that Wisconsin and Los Angeles, and the other communities that have had enough, send messages strong enough to penetrate the walls of Capitol Hill.  It’s time our government support those struggling to get by, and not just those with the money to access power in private backrooms.  It’s time we make it know:  budget cuts equal job cuts.  And America simply can’t afford to cut anymore jobs.

Here’s an interesting factoid from a new white paper from the Consumer Federation of California.  With the nearly $38 billion California taxpayers have spent on the war in Afghanistan since 2001, we could have paid for any one of the following:

•    15.6 million people with health care;

•    5.7 million scholarships and 7 million Pell Grants for university students;

•    4.5 million Head Start placements for children;

•    500,000 new elementary school teachers;

•    676,649 public safety officers;

•    535,058 music and arts teachers;

•    113,373 affordable housing units;

•    And 67.4 million homes with renewable electricity.

As Californians watch our utility rates spike, our library hours get cut back, our fire stations get pared down, our potholes mushroom and our cities’ bond ratings tank, we might pause to ponder the price of single predator drone in Afghanistan: $4.5 million.  That would fill a lot of potholes.

Brave New Foundation (disclaimer: my employer)just launched episode 2 of This Brave Nation, a documentary series born out of a collaboration between BNF and The Nation magazine.  In this episode, two legendary Californians, Dolores Huerta and Bonnie Raitt, are featured in conversation with one another.  (Episode 1 also features two Californians: Van Jones and Carl Pope.  Really serves to remind you just how outsized a role our state has played in building the progressive movement in the U.S.)

Here’s the trailer with Bonnie Raitt.  You can view the entire 30-minute episode at http://bravenation.com/bonnie_…

Future episodes will include Anthony Romero and Ava Lowery, Majora Carter and Pete Seeger, and Tom Hayden and Naomi Klein. At a moment when progressives are healing the wounds of a divisive presidential primary, this series reminds us of the solidarity of our movement.

Brave New Foundation (disclaimer: my employer) just released this new video featuring students who grew up in the U.S., worked their way through high school and earned the merits to attend college, but now face legal and financial barriers to enrolling due solely to their immigration status.  The DREAM Act, which died in Congress in 2006 along with immigration reform as a whole, would have removed the federal provision that prevents states from allowing undocumented students who grew up here in America to qualify for in-state tuition, and would have provided a path to legal status for these future doctors, teachers, scientists and engineers.  The California DREAM Act, vetoed last year by the Governor, would have allowed undocumented students who grew up here in California to be treated like any other student when they applied for financial aid for college.

These bills aimed to rationalize our nation’s hamstrung immigration policies and to help bolster an eroding pool of skilled and educated workers in America.  Their demise spelled a huge missed opportunity for California and for the country.

Big thanks to Senator Cedillo for taking a stand on this critical issue, and for a career of fighting for more humane and sensible immigration policies.  Let’s hope to see the DREAM Act reintroduced in Sacramento and in Washington in the near future.

Learn more at A Dream Deferred.