Category: Rushmie Kalke
Immigrants Targeted in House Deficit Reduction Bill
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 – Janice Dos Santos volunteers as a translator at a food pantry in Chelmsford and knows many people who have immigrated to the Merrimack Valley, relying on food stamps to help support their families.
As an immigrant herself, the 19-year-old wife and mother knows how difficult the struggle is. Five years ago she came to Lowell, Mass., with her family from Joinville in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. Dos Santos learned English in school and with her parents’ support is pursuing a nursing degree at Middlesex Community College. When she isn’t studying, she works at a doctor’s office and at a cleaning company part-time.
Through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Women, Infants and Children Program Dos Santos gets supplemental formula for her 2-year-old son, and through the local welfare office she gets day care services for him while she attends school. She is lucky, she said, because her father, who runs a car dealership in Lowell, chips in money to pay the tuition costs and she doesn’t need food stamps.
But many people, she said, have to work multiple jobs and can’t afford school including some young women “who work 80 hours a week at $6 to $7 an hour.” Basic needs such as utility bills and rent consume the money earned from low wage jobs. As a result, Dos Santos said, they depend on food assistance programs to help defray the expenses.
But now it could get even harder for low-income families, particularly those of immigrants. In the coming weeks negotiators from the Senate and House are scheduled to discuss their respective versions of deficit reduction legislation. Among the items on the chopping block are food stamps. The House version of the bill would toss 255,000 people off of food stamps-70,000 of them legal immigrants-by 2008, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. On Nov. 18 the House narrowly passed its bill, 217 to 215. All Democrats and 14 Republicans opposed the bill.
The Senate version includes cuts to other assistance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid but does not cut food stamps. While President Bush has threatened to veto the Senate proposal because of slashes to Medicare and Medicaid, he has remained silent about cuts to food stamps.
The House bill overturns Bush administration initiatives in 2002 to restore some welfare benefits, and although the administration didn’t ask for the cuts, it said it strongly supports the bills and “appreciates the House’s efforts to promote spending discipline,” achieving close to $50 billion in savings, according to the administration’s official statement.
These cuts come at a time when discussions of poverty, class and race are at the forefront of national attention because of the devastation left by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It has been widely reported that pockets of the affected areas where many minorities and immigrants resided weren’t able to evacuate quickly or to get access to resources in the storms’ aftermaths.
Under current law, low-income adult immigrants who meet the eligibility requirements are barred from receiving food stamps for the first five years they are in the country, but under the proposed House bill immigrants would have to wait an additional two years.
There are exceptions to the cuts. Immigrants who currently participate in the food stamp program, who are 60 years or older, or who are in the process of applying for citizenship would be exempt. But poor non-elderly legal immigrants with serious disabilities not already participating would be disqualified immediately. After a two-year phase in period, the full cuts would go into effect by 2008.
The federal savings generated by extending the amount of time immigrants are in the country from five years to seven years is $255 million over a five-year period, which is part of an overall $697 million cut to food stamps, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“To come up with a goofy rule of going from five to seven years seems so arbitrary and mean-spirited,” said Jonathan Blazer, a public benefits policy attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. “What it’s about is creating an unwelcoming environment to immigrants.”
At the heart of this issue is differentiating between immigrants who are in the country legally and those who aren’t. Only immigrants with lawful permanent resident, refugee or asylums status are authorized to receive public benefits. However, the public misconception often is that illegal immigrants also have access to the benefits, a notion propagated by some politicians said Blazer.
“This framing continues a campaign that has included Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) giving the impression that food stamp cuts have something to do with illegal immigration or illegal immigrants fraudulently obtaining food stamps, a claim that is erroneous,” Blazer said, adding that the cuts hurt those immigrants who “pay taxes, have children in the military and contribute positively to society.”
“The response from our office is illegal immigration has never been a topic that has been broached at all,” said Alise Kowalski, spokesperson for the Agriculture Committee. Goodlatte-an attorney with immigration law background-“would never confuse the legal with illegal non-citizens,” she said.
An earlier version of the House Republican Conference’s summary of the deficit reduction bill, however, listed “restricting illegal immigrant access to food stamps and Medicaid” as a key provision. It has since been corrected, but it is an example of the confusion surrounding the issue. Blazer said that politicians “make a name for themselves for being tough on immigrants. But it has nothing to do with that.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), the chairman for House Republican Conference, said adding illegal immigrants to the agenda was “a typo.”
The problem, said supporters of the legislation, is with policies allowing large numbers of legal immigrants into the country.
“I don’t want to import people who will be a burden to the country,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan research group that favors stricter immigration policies. “Don’t let low-skilled workers in. Once you let in a low-skilled worker there will be a whole variety of fiscal and economical burdens he’ll add.”
The American public shouldn’t have to bear that burden, agreed Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a public-interest group seeking to change immigration laws to lower legal immigration.
“Citizens are different than non-citizens,” he said. “Coming to the U.S. is a conditional agreement.”
Although an immigrant receiving food stamps is not a public charge-an immigration law term used when a person has no income other than federal cash benefits-Mehlman said “the fact you don’t rely 100 percent on aid does not mean it isn’t still a burden.”
“There is always a double standard: immigrants are here for their own self-interest,” he said. “But when people [who are opposed to immigration] say ‘It is not in my self-interest,’ all of a sudden they are mean people.”
In the last 10 years Washington lawmakers have made changes in the welfare benefits laws, resulting in a decrease of participation among immigrants. People have shied away from seeking benefits because the changes have made the fine print confusing and they fear breaking the rules, according to some persons who work with immigrants.
The most significant overhaul to the welfare system came in 1996 with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Under the law, commonly referred to as the welfare reform act, no one could receive benefits for more than five years and the states were charged with determining how to distribute the funds under a new block grant system. It also dramatically reduced immigrants’ eligibility to federally funded benefits in their first five years of residence.
“The net impact was to send a message-that participation was a big mistake,” said Stacy Dean, director of food stamp policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research group.
In Massachusetts, the state government scrambled to ensure that low-income families could still get access to food stamps through a state-funded package, said Patricia Baker, a senior policy analyst for the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute in Boston. The largest financial impact of the federal cuts was on the immigrant community, she said.
“We were staring down the barrel of a gun,” Baker said. “And there was an outcry by states that they were being dumped on.”
Although welfare benefits were restored somewhat in 1998 and 2002, the changes made immigrants leery of seeking benefits. In 2001, the overall food stamp participation rate in Massachusetts plummeted to the lowest in the country, according to a February 2005 report by Katy Mastman, a fellow at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.
At the center of why participation is low among eligible immigrants is the lack of public campaigns explaining law changes and fears that complying incorrectly with rule changes could affect the outcome of their citizenship application or, worse, could result in deportation, Baker said.
The state’s participation rate for food stamps has increased slightly in recent years but still remains third from the bottom, according to the study. In 2003, nationwide 62 percent of the persons eligible for food stamps sought to receive them, while in Massachusetts the participation rate was 47 percent.
The House bill’s proposed cuts are not as restrictive as those made in 1996, but another change to benefits could undo steps taken to restore benefits in recent years, Blazer said. “We are still working to fix what happened,” he said.
A concern is the impact that the legislation has on children. The majority of immigrants who would be cut off from food stamps for an additional two years are parents earning low-wages, so their children, while not cut off themselves, would be affected if the amount of food stamps received by the family was sharply reduced.
Also, children could lose access to free school meals-which under current law they are automatically eligible for if their family receives food stamps-posing an additional burden to families, as well as to states and school districts which may not be able to afford picking up the responsibility.
Patricia Karl, the superintendent of Lawrence Family Development Charter School, where 99 percent of the 523 students attending the school are Latino, said the double impact of children being cut of from food at home and at school “would be detrimental to learning and a great tragedy.”
In the Lawrence school district, she said, there are 4,200 children who could be directly affected by the cuts.
She denounces those who say immigrants should be treated differently than citizens. “As a nation of immigrants, everyone has come over as an immigrant,” Karl said. “No one had a visa when they came to Plimoth Plantation.”
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Documentary Takes on Treatment of Wal-Mart Workers
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - The Wal-Mart smiley face that is usually found darting between low-priced items in company commercials has had to dodge a lot of criticism recently.
Vocal opponents have come down hard on the super retailer, denouncing its business practices-everything from its impact on the environment to its treatment of employees and its effect on small-town America. The latest attack is a documentary chronicling the working conditions of Wal-Mart employees.
The film, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," produced by Robert Greenwald, is premiering this week across the country and will hit Merrimack Valley on Sunday.
The buzz has caught the attention of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) met with Greenwald and Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal advocacy group, to discuss how to improve working conditions for low-wage workers.
"Low cost does not have to mean low wages and low respect for the thousands of workers in the Merrimack Valley and across the country," Kennedy said in statement to the Eagle-Tribune. "I applaud the community groups and religious leaders who are promoting awareness of Wal-Mart's abuses by gathering together in Andover."
Greenwald's documentary is scheduled for screening at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover on Nov. 20 at 6 p.m.
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott responded to critics on Oct. 24 by promising to roll out a new heath care plan for employees, reduce the big-box stores' greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over the next seven years and encourage Congress to review the minimum wage rate.
Wal-Mart is trying to make health care more accessible to its employees, said Nate Hurst, a Wal-Mart spokesman based in Washington, D.C. This year an additional 100,000 employees will receive medical benefits, Hurst said, bringing the number of employees and their family members covered under the company's plan to more than a million.
"These negative attacks haven't created a single job or helped families get health insurance," he said, adding that last year Wal-Mart created 210,000 jobs and saved American families an average of $2,300, according to independent analysis by Global Insights, an economic consulting firm headquartered in Waltham.
Another independent movie, "Why Wal-Mart Works And Why That Makes Some People Crazy," scheduled for DVD release Tuesday, holds the opposite view of Greenwald's film.
"We believe that Wal-Mart, by providing goods to shoppers at the lowest possible price and playing a positive role in the community, has benefited working families far more than any special-interest group," said the movie's producer, Ron Galloway, in a statement. "People vote with their feet, and 138 million people per week decide it's to their benefit to shop at Wal-Mart."
Hurst said that Wal-Mart had nothing to do with Galloway's movie.
The Rev. Ralph Galen is one of those who disagrees. Galen's church, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover, is the host of the Sunday night screening of the Greenwald documentary. He is also the secretary of Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community, a national sponsor of the film.
The organization looks at all big-box store employment practices, and, Galen said, "Wal-Mart is the most egregious."
He said he hopes the film will raise community awareness, citing growing disparities between Merrimack Valley towns in wealth, health care and job opportunities.
"Social justice starts with education," Galen said. "I'm sure a lot of people in Andover will sleep-walk through this."
Wal-Mart Watch, a non-profit organization devoted to studying the impact of large corporations on society, said the company has left more than half of its 1.2 million American employees without health care coverage, forcing them to turn to government programs such as Medicaid.
Kennedy and DeLauro sponsored several initiatives designed to help low-income workers, including work safety, pay-scale gender equality and an increase in the minimum wage. A spokeswoman in Kennedy's office said the senator hopes that the legislation will get support but recognizes that "it's tough with the Republican leadership."
One proposed bill, The Employee Free Choice Act, would help foster an atmosphere where workers can choose to unionize without employer pressure.
Wal-Mart's Hurst said attempts to unionize the company's employees have made it the target of "smear campaigns."
"National unions have tried to unionize at local levels, but employees voted it down," he said. He points to campaign contributions from labor union political action committees as a reason behind the proposed legislation.
The act, according to Kennedy's statement, would strengthen current labor law and provide for binding arbitration when an employer refuses to reach a first contract.
"We are working hard in Congress to make the Wal-Marts of the world accountable to workers, families and communities," Kennedy said.
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FDA’s New Warning on Contraception Patch Raises Questions
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -Women who use the Ortho Evra contraception patch are exposed to higher levels of estrogen that could be linked to problems such as blood clotting, according to the Food and Drug Administration's new labeling requirement.
But Massachusetts doctors said that they would need more information before discouraging patients from using the once-a-week prescription patch.
Studies conducted by regulators and the patch manufacturer, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals (a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary) found that women who use the patch are exposed to 60 percent more estrogen over the course of a month than women who use typical birth control pills. Those findings prompted the new label warning, which informs users of the increased exposure.
Increased estrogen levels have been found to increase the risk of blood clotting; the FDA, however, said it was not known whether women using Ortho Evra were at higher risk than those taking the pill.
As the first federally approved skin patch for birth control, Ortho Evra has been used by an estimated four million women since it hit the market in 2002, according to the Ortho Evra Web site.
Hailed for its convenience, Ortho Evra is a thin, beige plastic patch that sticks to skin and is applied once a week in three-week intervals, releasing hormones into the bloodstream to protect against pregnancy.
Patch users receive higher levels of hormones, said Dr. Karen Loeb Lyfford, the medical director of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts in Boston, because of the contraceptive's continuous delivery system.
Pill users experience daily peaks in hormone levels while Ortho Evra users receive a constant stream, Lyfford said. So in the course of a day the peak hormone levels of the pill are 25 percent higher than that of the patch. Over a month however, steady accumulation of estrogen from the patch results in higher overall levels.
More information is needed to determine if higher levels of estrogen cause problems such as blood clots in Ortho Evra users, she said.
"There is no medical reason that would make me not recommend it to patients," Lyfford said. "But some patients may decide not to use it."
The Associated Press, citing federal death and injury reports, said that about a dozen women in their late teens and early 20s died from blood clots believed to be associated with Ortho Evra use last year. Dozens more were afflicted with strokes and other clot-related problems, the AP reported.
"I would say these are anecdotal cases," said Thomas Davidson, a physician with Andover Obstetrics and Gynecology, a group of area clinics , adding that more research is needed into why these deaths occurred.
Women who take the pill are also at risk for clotting, but pregnant women have an even higher risk rate of developing clots than both pill and patch users, Davidson said.
Despite this, some patients are worried.
"It is important to give them good information. A lot of people are asking about the reports," Davidson said.
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Oil Executives Face The Heat In Washington
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - The chief executives of five major oil companies were in the hot seat Wednesday as they defended their companies' record-breaking profits before Congress.
In recent months, much of the debate on Capitol Hill focused on addressing the country's growing energy needs in the face of escalating prices. Members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, meeting jointly, questioned the oil industry panelists as to how much of the industry's profits were a result of price gouging during a time of uncertainty made worse by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"In the midst of suffering, in the midst of sacrifice," companies' raking in so much money is a cause for question, said Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), co-chairman of the Commerce Committee.
For instance, Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest non-government petroleum company, with over 86,000 employees and a market capitalization of about $350 billion, posted third-quarter earnings close to $10 billion.
Lee R. Raymond, chief executive at Exxon, said that although the petroleum industry's earnings are at historic highs, when they are compared to other industries on earnings per dollar of revenue, "we are line with the average of U.S. industries. Our numbers are huge because the scale of our industry is huge."
Raymond, joined at the witness table by chief executives from Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, BP America Inc. and Shell Oil Co., said that the company's profits have always been reinvested into capital expenditures and research.
In total, the five oil companies earned more than $25 billion during the three months that ended Sept. 30.
Inouye questioned Raymond about reports that an Exxon-branded station in the storm-affected Gulf Coast region raised gasoline prices by 24 cents in 24 hours. If price gouging is defined as "unconscionably excessive," he asked, "then isn't this price gouging?"
Raymond said while he couldn't confirm the specific incident, Exxon doesn't control prices except in the case of company-owned stations. As for wholesale prices on gasoline sold to independently owned stations, Raymond said the corporate directive was to minimize price increases but without lowering prices to the point of causing a gasoline shortage.
"The concept we had was not to price gouge," Raymond said.
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) urged other legislators not to institute a windfall profits tax on oil companies, as was done in the 1980s. He said reports showed that the tax resulted in an increase in the cost of gas, a three to six percent decline in domestic oil production and an increase in oil imports.
Many senators wanted explanations of how gasoline is priced. James J. Mulva, chief executive at ConocoPhillips, said that crude oil prices are set by the world markets and that growing demand, geopolitical problems in the Middle East and limited production capacity have driven prices up.
"While ConocoPhillips doesn't expect the prices we see today to be sustained, we do want to give you an appreciation of the challenges that lie ahead in supplying the U.S. and the world's energy needs," he said.
Another influence on the market is speculators, or commodity traders, who bid on crude oil in the financial markets and drive prices up further, the witnesses said. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR.) said he wanted to rein in speculators with legislation.
Wyden asked the witnesses if their companies needed incentives and tax breaks to operate, to which they all answered no. "Then I hope you'll support me when I try to rescind these tax breaks," he said.
Supporters of such breaks argue that the purpose isn't to assist the big oil giants but to help smaller refineries around the country.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) brought up executive compensation and said while the industry executives are reaping huge bonuses on top of already huge salaries, the average American is struggling to get by and is concerned about home heating costs this winter.
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For Adam Aliano, Annapolis Is Not the Average College Experience
ANNAPOLIS, Md., Nov. 3 - On a beautiful autumn day in November, Adam Aliano and his classmates sit through a required government class in their first semester of college.
The professor walks in and begins discussing a bibliography assignment that is part of a thesis paper the students must complete. She announces that the highest score is a 95 but that the class average is a 50.
The students groan in unison. Aliano, a Methuen native, looks over at his friend Jack McCain, smiling but shaking his head. It's all part of the induction process into the rigors of academia that takes place every year on college campuses across the country.
But little clues reveal this is not a regular college: Aliano wears his dark hair cut short and his shoes spit-polished. He is dressed in a dark blue uniform called "winter working blues." When the professor, a Navy commander, entered the room a cry of "Attention on deck!" caused the students to jump simultaneously out of their seats and salute.
This is the United States Naval Academy. Nestled on the banks of the Severn River where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland, neither the school nor its students are ordinary.
At 19 years of age, Aliano already has a resume full of achievements. At Methuen High School he was the star pitcher, a member of the National Honor Society, and the senior class president who organized a Christmas tree sale to generate funds for class activities.
Since reporting to the academy in June for "plebe summer"-a seven-week program that yanks teenagers out of a world filled with reality television, video games and peer pressure, and prepares them for a schedule of discipline, rigor and military life-Aliano has been awarded the expert medal in firearms training. He has also been assigned as his platoon squad leader and was selected to represent the academy by throwing out the first pitch at a Baltimore Orioles game at Camden Yards earlier this fall.
Aliano shrugs it off and says that the academy is full of students "who are really good at something." In fact, 82 percent of the class of 2009 were ranked in top 20 percent of their high school class and 85 percent of them earned athletic varsity letters, according to academy figures. The upper range of the average verbal and math SAT scores is 700.
Of the 11,000 students who applied to be a part of Aliano's class, only 4,300 were nominated by an official source such as a congressman, a requirement for consideration. Aliano received his official nomination from Rep. Martin Meehan of Lowell. From this group of 4,300, the incoming class was whittled down to 1,200 students, including 235 women, based on scholastic and physical merit.
What inspires these men and women at so young an age to bear the responsibility of the Naval mission of developing "in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government," especially at a time when the Iraq war weighs heavily on the psyche of the country?
"I wouldn't have applied if I wasn't willing to serve," Aliano says. "I feel it's something I owe back. In studying other cultures I realized how great we have it."
Aliano was recruited by other schools to play baseball but chose to come to the academy.
"It says a lot about him," says Mark Grams, one of Aliano's baseball coaches in Methuen. "He could have gone anywhere he wanted; made any team he wanted. But he wanted to go the Naval Academy."
Aliano's older sister, Lorie, enlisted in the Navy and Aliano recalls watching her march in formation when he was 12 years old. "I was really impacted by their discipline," he said.
During his junior year, he took an ROTC class offered at high school and he said his interest grew until one day while driving his car he had an epiphany about what he wanted for his life after college-serving his country.
"He chose the academy because he thought it would be a good fit for him," says Aliano's father, Samuel, a retired Lawrence police captain.
It's the lifestyle attracts him, Samuel Aliano says. "There is only one club there and that's the Navy club. They are teaching him to be a member of a team and he responds to that."
His father remembers when Adam was a child, about three or four-years-old, playing in the backyard with a friend about the same age. The boys were playing near the family's pool and the cover gave way as the friend fell in the shallow end. Not strong enough to pull him out, Adam was able to grab his friend and keep his head above water until his parents pulled both children to safety moments later.
"Even as a kid he had a lot of common sense," Samuel Aliano says.
When Aliano is asked about the incident, he smiles, looks down at his hands and again shrugs. Perhaps what happened foreshadowed a desire to protect. Even when talking about the country's divide over the Iraq war, he says, "I am here to defend those people's right to express how they feel. I'm here to protect their opinions."
"He wanted to be in the big situation," says Grams, Aliano's high school coach. "He is a very fierce competitor."
But even with that responsibility, Aliano is still a kid. He jokes and laughs with his Academy classmates, such as McCain, the son of Arizona Sen. John McCain. Before the government class they rib each other and at one point Aliano gives McCain a noogie.
Even with all of his accomplishments he is self-effacing. "I am not the smartest and the most athletic kid," he says. "But I know my priorities: being happy and close to those that I love. And as a leader, someone people can confide in."
When he talks about his aspirations he lights up. Someday he wants to go into politics or law. To prepare, Aliano says he and McCain are planning to run for class office together next year - Aliano for president and McCain as his running mate. And of course, there is the dream of every kid.
"Yes, m'am. I really want to fly planes in the Navy," he says.
Walking around the Yard of the academy one gets a sense of unity, even if only from students' homogeneous attire. It is evident the student body, or the brigade as it is called, shares a collective experience and identity.
One such experience is plebe summer. From dawn until long after the day's end, the first year students, or plebes, fill their time with grueling physical activities and training that prepare them for military life. Shedding their civilian skin, they learn everything from the proper saluting technique to the basics of seamanship and handling small firearms.
The goal of the summer, explains Aliano, is to bond the newcomers together. "You put the benefit of the group before yourself," he says. "I take care of my men and I know that if there is a chance that I fail, I have the support of everyone else."
"I can try to explain what [plebe summer] was like to you or my parents" but only the participants really understand, he says.
It's true. A civilian walking around the Yard feels as though a different language is being spoken. It's a language anchored with words like commitment, honor and teamwork, and that carry life and death consequences out on the field.
"Although we all may seem the same," Aliano says, each member of the brigade's individuality is on the inside. "It's when you are alone that shapes your individual character. We are all individuals with really strong talents."
Aliano says he seeks solace in the quiet of the Academy's chapel every Sunday. And to relax, the self-taught musician strums chords on his acoustic guitar.
Another lifeline is emailing friends back home and daily calls to his mom, Maria, and his girlfriend, a freshman at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. Without his family's encouragement, Aliano says, he "wouldn't be successful."
Although he has their support, it is not without their concern.
"Like every parent," his father says, "you worry, especially in times of war. But he says to me, 'Dad, I could be killed walking down the street.' There are always risks."
Adam Aliano wears a reminder of that risk. On his wrist is a silver bracelet engraved with the name of a soldier killed in Vietnam. He bought it, he says, to honor those who have served before him.
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LIHEAP Funding Warms Up As Winter Approaches
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 -Ruth Mattheson, 84, remembers how difficult the Depression was.
The Lawrence resident recalls when $1 bought a bag full of groceries and when families watched every penny they spent. She remembers when homes were heated by wood and coal stoves, and keeping warm was a great concern.
"There were no storm windows and we had to dress in several layers to keep warm," she said.
Years have come and gone since the Depression and while technology has advanced the standard of living, there are still people who are worried about keeping warm this winter, as Mattheson did so many years ago. They will have to depend on energy assistance programs, such as the federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, to pay their heating bills.
No one disputes that the assistance program is crucial, but the question that remains is whether there will be enough funding to go around, especially as the energy supply is squeezed and prices soar.
Mattheson, who lives at the Berkeley Retirement Home in Lawrence, does not have any anxieties this year about heating but said if she were still living in her house she would be worried.
In fact, the elderly community and low-income families are at high-risk during the cold months. A nationwide survey of 1,100 energy assistance recipients found that 32 percent either did not fill prescriptions or did not take full doses of medication due to escalating energy bills. The study, conducted by the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, an educational and policy organization for state and local directors of the program, also found that 16 percent of those surveyed said they became ill as the result of a cold home.
The federal assistance program allocates a block grant to every state, and the funds are then administered locally. In Massachusetts, the Department of Housing and Community Development oversees the state program, and local agencies process requests for assistance.
The program, which runs from November through April, offers financial assistance for home heating to renters or homeowners whose annual household income is less than twice the federal poverty income level, which is determined by the number of family members. A household of four has to earn less than $38,700 to be eligible for assistance.
Facing the Cold
The phone has been ringing off the hook at the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council, Inc., the Merrimack Valley's local agency in charge of distributing the heating funds.
When callers can't get through to the council by phone, program director Judy Brady said, they have been coming in and the waiting room is filled with 20 to 25 people at a time.
"People are concerned and they are considering their options early," she said.
Last year, nearly 8,000 people in the area received energy assistance, Brady said, and the demand for heating assistance will increase. While it is hard to guess the exact figure, she said 3,000 recipients from last year have already recertified and she expects to hear from most of the others. In addition she said she thinks the office will process more than 2,000 new applications.
"We are grateful for (the funding) we get," Brady said. "But it's not enough and we need it up front."
Recipients' benefit levels can't be determined until the overall program funding is determined, which leaves Brady and her staffers "hanging with a lot of paperwork." And if additional funds trickle down from the federal appropriations process during the winter season, it adds up to more paperwork and to funds that some recipients can't use.
For example, Brady said, if an extra $50 is doled out to people mid-season, they would have a hard time getting an oil company out to their house for that small amount.
Brady said she thinks she will be able to serve everyone at least once with the current funding levels, but that might mean 150 gallons having to last an entire season.
State lawmakers have been working with the local agencies, Brady said, to get information to residents. An energy assistance forum, scheduled for Oct. 25 at the Lawrence Public Library, is one of several meetings around the state hosted by the Department of Telecommunications and Energy. She said the discussion about conservation, assistance and energy budgeting would be beneficial to recipients.
Washington lawmakers heat up
Since 2000, the government has annually spent an average of $1.9 billion for the energy assistance program, which dates back to 1982. Last year, the funding broke the $2 billion mark for the first time since 1985, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program.
As part of the Energy Policy Act signed by President Bush in August, up to $5.1 billion can be spent for 2006, but so far, Congress only plans to fund $2 billion.
A bipartisan group of senators tried to attach a funding increase to the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill this week, but it was procedurally blocked on Thursday and never made it the floor for a vote. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Maine's Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, led this second attempt by legislators to appropriate the remaining $3.1 billion.
In the beginning of October, Massachusetts Senators John Kerry and Edward Kennedy proposed a similar amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Even with half of the Senate's support, it was procedurally blocked by Republican leadership.
But as lawmakers try to work it out, the average family in Massachusetts still faces a winter heating oil bill that is $378 more than last winter's average cost of $1,200, according to a recent Energy Information Administration report.
Even before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita strained already tight natural gas and oil supplies, energy was a source of concern. The oil markets flirted with record highs all summer before finally surpassing the $60 a barrel mark and gas prices have been steadily rising.
Damage from hurricanes shut down seven refineries in the Gulf Coast area, reducing the nation's energy capacity by 11 percent or 1.9 million barrels a day, Kennedy said.
At an energy conference in September, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said that the energy assistance program is one that works. "It has real meaning in the lives of people who are eligible and need to take advantage of it," she said.
"We refuse to abandon families, especially seniors, who won't be able to afford to keep the heat on," Kerry said in a statement on Wednesday. "The administration's own Energy Information Administration knows this problem is real. Governors across the country see this. So why are the White House and the Republican leadership in Congress going out of their way to do nothing? What's it going to take for the White House to act?"
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Housing Market to Slow But Not Burst
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 - The chief economist of Freddie Mac forecast Wednesday a decline in New England home price appreciation next year as a result of rising mortgage rates and modest family income growth.
Frank E. Nothaft predicted that the average rate of price of home appreciation in the region would be 3.9 percent, on pace with the national average of 3.5 percent for 2006.
That is a substantial decline from the surge in New England home prices of 13.7 percent in the 12-month period ended June 30.
Freddie Mac (formally, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) , a publicly traded company chartered by Congress in 1970, works primarily in the secondary mortgage market, purchasing mortgage loans from primary lending institutions. This flow of funds helps to control cyclical swings in the housing market and allows for the availability of mortgage funds at all times, according to the company's Web site.
In the Greater Boston area, the number of single-family home sales has declined although the median selling price has increased, according to quarterly data released by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
There were 251 fewer homes sold in the quarter ended June 30 than in the same period last year, but the median price jumped by $21, 925, to $496,925.
Condominiums, on the other hand, sold 660 more units in the Boston area than in the same period in 2004, while the median price tag rose by $22,500, to $352,500.
The recent real estate market boom can't be sustained, Nothaft said, unless incomes increase by 13 percent and there is "no evidence to support that is happening."
With unemployment reports not as bad as some had feared and with moderate growth in the economy, Nothaft said, it was more than likely that the Federal Reserve will continue to nudge interest rates up by quarter-point increments.
This, along with rising energy costs, would be likely to translate into higher long-term interest rates, he said.
The effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita have had an effect on economic growth and labor markets as well, with 200,000 jobs being wiped out last month, he said.
Closed businesses, lost jobs and import-export problems through the New Orleans area will reduce the gross domestic product growth rate by about 0.5 percent as the year comes to a close, Nothaft said, to an estimated 3.5 percent.
He said the reconstruction efforts will cause the cost of construction materials such as roofing, plywood and gypsum board to rise 5 to 10 percent in the coming year.
But nationally, there is a healthy supply and demand for homes, and prices won't bottom out, Nothaft said.
"There is no national price bubble, so we aren't expecting a collapse," he said.
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U.S. Companies Still Need Innovation Despite Regulation
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The real challenge to the United States isn't terrorism but maintaining a competitive position in the growing global market, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), chairman of the Senate banking subcommittee on securities and investment, said Wednesday.
The senator spoke as a part of a panel hosted by U.S. News & World Report magazine on whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has restored investor confidence since it was enacted in 2002.
Hailed as the most significant change to the country's securities law since the New Deal in the 1930s, Sarbanes-Oxley was designed to protect investors by improving the reliability and accuracy of corporate disclosures. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board was created as a result of the act.
Hagel said regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley, while not intending to foster a risk-free corporate culture, could restrict innovation and growth.
The panelists-William J. McDonough, chairman of the Accounting Oversight Board; John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable; Alyssa Machold Ellsworth, managing director of the Council of Institutional Investors; and Hagel-agreed that the act has made strides in improving transparency in financial disclosure, a needed measure after the Enron, WorldCom and Tyco scandals.
As a result, however, some companies are already risk averse, McDonough said. The question to think about, he said, is "How do we keep the virtue of Sarbanes-Oxley and have business leaders keep taking risks?"
As with any new routine, said Ellsworth, company executives are adjusting to their new roles, and striking a balance will come with time.
"This is the most vibrant market in the world," she said.
Sarbanes-Oxley has been very effective for larger companies that have developed compliance oversight boards and have had long-standing relationships with auditors, McDonough said. But for others, compliance regulations haven't been cost-effective, he said.
The panelists recommended that Congress should consider legislation to make the act more manageable for small-to-mid size companies that don't have ample resources to comply with the paperwork and labor-intensive requirements.
Clear disclosure of chief executives' compensation, was another hot button, especially for investors. Though the law requires disclosure of compensation, critics say companies are sometimes vague on the details.
"Shareholders see red on this issue," Ellsworth said.
Agreeing with other panelists, Castellani said compensation shouldn't be legislated but industry guidelines should be drawn up so investors can understand how CEOs are paid.
He said that salaries should be linked to long-term performance, determined by independent company committees and that executives shouldn't be rewarded for underperformance.
Changes to the legislation won't come any time soon though, Hagel said, adding that it falls low on a list of congressional priorities that include Hurricane Katrina relief.
"It is important to let [the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board] play this out," he said. "We have to be careful that Congress doesn't regulate the regulators."
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Third Time Armenian Genocide Bill Lands on Speaker’s Desk
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - For Aram A. Jeknavorian of Pelham, N.H., the Armenian genocide bill isn't just a piece of legislation.
It's about righting a wrong, he said, and honoring the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians killed between 1915 and 1923.
It's also personal for Jeknavorian, a member of Merrimack Valley's chapter of the Armenian National Committee of America.
His father, Abraham, a young boy in 1915, was forced to flee his home in the middle of the night for the safety of a friend's house. He left his parents behind, as Ottoman Turkish soldiers descended upon their town of Ordu. Returning home a week later, Abraham found his father but learned his mother had been detained. She was released and then later detained again.
The ordeal took its toll and Jeknavorian's grandmother died shortly after her second release, he said.
For so many Armenian Americans, coping with the memories is a shared history that has yet to find closure.
In September, the. House International Relations Committee approved two resolutions. The first recognizes the Armenian genocide and urges Turkey to take responsibility for its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire. The other calls upon President Bush to ensure that the country's foreign policy reflects an understanding of human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide as it is documented in the U.S. archive of the Armenian genocide.
Resolutions have been introduced in the House in earlier sessions but have yet to reach the floor for a vote. The fate of the current resolutions rests with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who has twice blocked a floor vote.
"We aren't looking for reparations," said John Amboian, 74, of Andover and a member of the Armenian Assembly of America.
What matters is recognizing the genocide, and that hasn't happened because of Turkey's relationship with the United States, he said.
"If the bill were approved by the full House, it would be a clear message to the world that the U.S. won't push a horrible event under the rug to pacify Turkey," Amboian said.
But in a Sept. 9 letter to Hastert, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who is chairman of the American-Turkish Council , said: "Turkey's strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans places it at the center of America's current and long term strategic interests.. H. Res. 195, while purporting to support Turkey's [European Union] accession talks, and H. Res. 316, do exactly the opposite. The resolutions encourage those who would pull Turkey away from the West. The careless use of genocide language provides an excuse to do so, delivering a final blow to American interests in the region."
Last week a rally was held outside Hastert's district office in Batavia, with participants urging him to schedule a vote. The event's headliner, System of a Down-a rock band whose four members are of Armenian descent-drew a crowd of about 100, according the Armenian National Committee national office in Washington, a co-organizer of the event.
"We've heard the bill is going through the normal process," said Elizabeth Chouldjian, the Armenian National Committee's spokeswoman in Washington, D.C. "Our concern is it went through committee in 2000 and 2004 and never made it through. We are hoping to see a change."
The House majority leader's office said on Wednesday the resolution hasn't been added to the schedule of floor votes. Rep. Martin Meehan and others are pushing to get the resolution to the floor this fall, his office said.
"The world turned its head nine decades ago when genocide in Turkey took over a million Armenian lives," Meehan told the Eagle-Tribune. "Today, the world must not turn its head again. History must remember when genocide happens both to honor the dead and as a reminder of what prejudice can do if not confronted."
The local effort in Merrimack Valley has been focused on getting support for the bill, Jeknavorian said. He credits the collaboration of other area organizations-the Armenian Relief Society, the Armenian Genocide Commemorative Committee and churches such as St. Gregory Armenian Church in North Andover and the Armenian Church at Hye Point, which serves Lawrence and Haverhill-in getting backing from legislators.
Every Massachusetts and New Hampshire representative is a member of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues and has co-sponsored the bill.
Jeknavorian said it would be "a great relief" if the bill passed, not only for Armenians but for the international community when it faces genocide, such as in the Darfur region of Sudan.
But for Armenian families torn apart and displaced nearly a century ago, there may be reason for the younger generations to hope.
"[Our parents] did as much as they could to survive," Jeknavorian said. "They were not as politically connected as we are as U.S. citizens. We are doing what they would have done. We are acting on their behalf."
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Generic AIDS Drugs Hit The U.S. Market
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - On its surface, the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision to allow marketing of generic versions of the HIV drug AZT is good news.
The obvious benefit is cost-savings that could provide more patients with access to treatment. But for HIV/AIDS patients in Massachusetts who are already taking sophisticated drug combinations, the availability of a cheaper generic drug may not make a dent in health care expenses.
Zidovudine, or AZT, was the first drug approved for the treatment of HIV and is manufactured by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline under the brand name Retrovir. A member of a class of drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, it helps keep the AIDS virus from reproducing.
With last week's FDA decision, two companies in India and Roxane Laboratories of Columbus, Ohio, have received authorization to market their generic versions in the United States.
However, AZT is no longer prescribed for adult patients on its own. Instead, according to HIV treatment guidelines issued by the U.S. Public Health Service, it is usually prescribed in combination with three or four other anti-HIV drugs. But drugs other than AZT have yet to hit the lower-priced generic market because of patent and market exclusivity restrictions that are years from expiration.
With advances in HIV research, many of the drug combinations have been consolidated into fewer pills to make treatment easier for patients, explained Donna M. Gallagher, the executive director of The New England AIDS Education and Training Center in Boston.
"Unless insurers insist on unpacking drugs and selling them separately," she said, the money saving benefits won't be felt by patients. But Gallagher cautioned that taking away the convenience of fewer pills "could be detrimental to treatment."
The possibility of more co-payments for each medication also could pose a financial burden to patients, she said.
Pediatricians, on the other hand, are excited about generic AZT.
AZT remains the backbone of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, said Dr. Katherine F. Luzuriaga, director of the division of pediatric immunology, infectious disease and rheumatology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Depending on the case, AZT can be administered to the mother and child alone for a short period of time or in combination with other drugs. A complete course of treatment, formula feeding and other interventions can reduce transmission odds to two percent, Luzuriaga said.
In addition to the benefits for pediatric AIDS patients, the greater availability of AZT has an impact in communities where there is a waiting list for HIV treatment, Gallagher said. Patients who couldn't afford treatment before generic AZT may benefit, she said, but they would still have to take several other pills at full cost.
However, in Massachusetts where about 14,200 people are known to be living with HIV/AIDS, according to 2004 Massachusetts Department of Public Health figures, patients have an easier time getting treatment than in other parts of the country because of drug assistance programs, Gallagher said.
Nevertheless, AIDS funding in the state has been declining. The $35.6 million budget for state AIDS prevention and treatment programs for the current fiscal year is 38 percent less than it was five years ago when adjusted for inflation, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, an economic think tank in Boston.
In March, Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced that the city would receive $1.1 million less this year for funding from the Ryan White CARE Act, a federal measure that pays for services for HIV/AIDS patients in eligible communities.
Yet while funding is decreasing, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the state grows annually. In 2003, the year with the most recently available statistics, the number of people with the virus was 20 percent higher than it was five years before.
Provincetown, Boston, Holyoke and Springfield have the highest rates of HIV diagnosis.
The safety and quality of generic drugs isn't at question, said David Scondras, president and founder of Cambridge-based Search For A Cure, a non-profit treatment advocacy program.
"People shouldn't feel nervous about using generic drugs," he said. "Just the opposite-they are tested more."
But with medical advances in treating HIV/AIDS, doctors don't prescribe the older drugs by themselves, he said.
"The overall impact of generic drugs is a good one," said Scondras. "But modern drugs won't be off label for another 15 years."
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