Democrats Initiate Economic Studies
Washington Post, The (DC) - Saturday, February 13, 1982
Author: Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post Staff Writer
In the continuing struggle of the Democratic Party to come up with alternative economic strategies, 52 members of Congress have asked the Institute for Policy Studies to produce a wide-ranging series of studies ranging from defense to housing.
"There is a public policy at this point of bribing the rich," Marcus Raskin, a founder of the IPS, the Left's think tank, said at a press conference. "In order to have a decent society, you have to be sure that the rich and the poor are citizens of the same country," he said, arguing that Reagan administration policies are resulting in "second-class citizenship for one-half of society."
Twenty-one separate studies will be put together under the project. Since the major conservative victory in the 1980 presidential and senatorial elections, there has been a growing effort by a number of liberal and Democratic groups to attempt to regain intellectual vigor.
The IPS will finance the studies, which were initiated at the request of Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) along with such other members of the House as Peter Rodino (D-N.J.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.), chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee; and Henry S. Reuss (D-Wis.), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.
The 52 members included one Republican, Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr. (N.Y.). Among the studies and the prospective authors are:
* Frances Fox Piven of Boston University and Richard Cloward of Columbia University, both of whom have written extensively on welfare programs, will produce a paper on entitlement programs.
* Bertram Gross, who wrote major elements of the original Humphrey-Hawkins full employment bill and the book "Friendly Fascism," will write a paper to be called "How to Get Full Employment."
* Martin Carnoy of Stanford University is to write a paper on inflation, capital development and allocation.
Raskin said the papers should be completed by the end of April. He said members of Congress supporting the studies said the papers would be used as the basis of hearings to be held later this year.
SEEDS OF SCHOLARSHIP
Miami Herald, The (FL) - Thursday, May 5, 1988
Author: CARLOS VERDECIA Herald Editorial Board
SOVIET imperialism has more than one way to invade a country. The first option — where applicable —
is to send its own troops and tanks. The second is secretly to send heavy military aid to support either a Marxist government or a Marxist insurgency, whichever may be the case. A third option — and probably the most-effective in the long run — is to form future leaders of that country in the Marxist ideology and the Leninist concept of Communist Party politics.
To achieve this long-term objective, Soviet-bloc countries including Cuba offer full scholarships to Third World students to study at different levels of education, culminating in institutions such as Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, the University of Havana in Cuba, or Eastern European universities.
(snip)
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A Troubled Ford Foundation
Washington Post, The (DC) - Saturday, July 4, 1981
Author: Walter Shapiro, Washington Post Staff Writer
The thicket of trees still blooms in the 11-story atrium lobby, the parquet floors are still waxed to a high gloss, and the grant checks still go out on schedule. Nevertheless, these are sad days at the $2.8 billion Ford Foundation .
Robert Schrank, who is retiring voluntarily after 10 years as a program officer at the foundation , described the current level of activity as resembling Sleepy Hollow, and the mood equivalent to that of an undertaking parlor.
At a time when the Reagan administration is cutting funds for domestic social programs and many look to private giving to take up the slack, the nation's largest foundation is in disarray.
Two years after becoming the first black to head a major foundation , Ford Foundation President Franklin A. Thomas is facing a degree of criticism and invective almost unprecedented in the genteel world of major philanthropy.
(snip)
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Ford Foundation to Increase Grant Funding
Washington Post, The (DC) - Monday, April 6, 1981
Author: Joyce Wadler, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Ford Foundation will increase its grant funding by at least 15 percent next year. The current $102 million budget of the organization — the wealthiest foundation in the country — will be increased for the first time in eight years with the major portion of the money being earmarked for urban poverty, according to president Franklin Thomas (Columbia alum).
(snip)
Ford trustees, however, including Harriet Raab, an assistant dean at Columbia , insisted that Thomas was "right on schedule."
(snip)
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http://www.un.org/partnerships/YAdvisoryBoardPage.htm
United Nations Advisory Board
Mr. Franklin A. Thomas, Head of the Ford Foundation Study Group (TFF Study Group - a nonprofit institution assisting development in South Africa, since 1996)
http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2487/Thomas-Franklin.html
Study Commission on United States Policy Toward Southern Africa, chairman; Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on South Africa, member, 1985-87; September 11th Fund, chairman.
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FORD FOUNDATION GIVES KENNEDY SCHOOL $50M
Boston Globe, The (MA) - April 5, 2001
WASHINGTON - Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government will announce today that it has received its largest single donation, a $50 million grant from the nonprofit Ford Foundation.
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Off topic?
http://www.insouth.org/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=119
Michael Chege
Organization Name: Africa Research and Resource Forum
Organization website: www.arrfoum.org
Country: Kenya
Affiliation / Position: Chairman of the Board of Directors
Profile Status: INSouth Workshop Participants
Region(s) Interest: Africa
Research Interest(s): Population, Migration, Employment, Gender; Health
Short Profile:
Michael Chege is currently an Advisor to the Government of Kenya on International Development Partnerships. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF), an independent, non-profit, research, resource, reflection and discourse organization devoted to enhancing thinking on African development.
In the years 1994 to 1996, Professor Chege was visiting scholar at Harvard University. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Geneva in 1982/83. Earlier, Professor Chege had served as Program Officer with the Ford Foundation based in Harare, Zimbabwe for six (6) years from 1988 to 1994. Before the assignment with the Ford Foundation, he was Senior Lecturer and Director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of Nairobi where he also served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1980 – 1983. Professor Chege has received several academic awards including awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation and Harvard University.
Prof. Chege's publications include 'Democratic Theory and Practice in Africa' (Edited with Afrifa Gitonga and Walter Oyugi in 1988) and several chapters in peer reviewed books as well as articles in international refereed journals.
Michael Chege
Panel includes: Vernon E. Jordan Jr. (Valerie Jarrett's great uncle) and Hanna H. Gray, president of the University of Chicago
FORD FOUNDATION CALLS FOR TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY TO REFORM WELFARE - SYSTEM
Richmond Times-Dispatch - Friday, May 12, 1989
Author: Marsha Mercer ; Media General News Service
Are the nation's elderly ready to foot the bill for a sweeping overhaul of the welfare system?
The Ford Foundation thinks so. It proposes taxing Social Security benefits to pay the $29 billion tab to expand and modernize womb-to-tomb services.
"America has no choice but to try" to revamp welfare, said Franklin A. Thomas , president of the Ford Foundation , firing the opening volley in what he hopes will become a national debate over welfare reform.
"Current social deficits threaten our quality of life, our economic future and our peace of mind," he said.
The Ford Foundation 's report, titled "The Common Good," issued yesterday, declares that the current system, created during the Depression, is unable to cope with today's problems.
"The system leaves too many people dependent, vulnerable and without security at critical points in their lives," the report says.
It recommends a sweeping new approach to welfare based on "the recognition that all Americans at one time or another have to rely upon our system of social welfare protections, beginning before birth with prenatal care and extending through the retirement years."
The $29 billion solution is a new "life-cycle" approach targeting aid to life's stages — infancy and childhood, young adulthood, the working years and old age.
"We believe that by providing adequate protections and opportunities early in life, there will be less of a need for programs later in life," said panel chairman Irving S. Shapiro, a lawyer who retired as chairman and chief operating officer of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
The report is the product of a three-year, $3 million study by a panel of business, civic and labor leaders and educators who worked with 28 research projects nationwide. One of the biggest changes would make drug and alcohol treatment available "on demand" — at a cost of a billion dollars a year.
To improve life for the youngest of America's poor, the study recommends: * Assuring all pregnant women prenatal care and all infants well-baby care.
* Expanding the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, program as an entitlement program, which would double the number participating.
* Expanding Head Start to enable 3- and 4-year-olds to participate, tripling the number served.
For disadvantaged youth, the study recommends community-based programs to reduce the school drop-out problem, prevent adolescent pregnancy and prepare students for working.
Life during the working years could be improved by raising the minimum wage, expanding the earned income tax credit available to low-income families and expanding employer health insurance and Medicaid.
Unemployment insurance and Aid to Families with Dependent Children also need to be reformed, the study said. It suggests:
* Allowing the jobless to take their unemployment benefits in a lump sum so they can relocate where jobs are.
* Reducing unemployment benefits gradually to provide greater incentive to return to work.
* Limiting the length of time those capable of working can receive welfare benefits.
To help the elderly poor cope, the study recommends increasing federal Supplemental Security Income benefits and subsidizing private insurance for long-term care.
Shapiro said that while the estimated $29 billion it would cost to reform and expand welfare is substantial, it is only a fraction of the $157 billion the government expects to spend to bail out the savings and loan industry.
Taxing Social Security like private pensions could raise $100 billion in five years, he said. The idea would be to tax Social Security benefits that exceed a worker's lifetime contributions.
"We're gambling that many of the people in my generation will feel different about taxing Social Security" if they know the money will be used to help others, Shapiro said.
"The one new idea is to recommend that the tax revenues collected be placed in a trust fund" with the sole purpose of funding welfare programs.
Members of the panel were: Sol Chaikin, president emeritus of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; James R. Ellis, a lawyer in Seattle; Robert F. Erburu, chairman and chief operating officer of Times Mirror Co.; John H. Filer, former chairman of Aetna Life and Casualty Co.; Hanna H. Gray, president of the University of Chicago; Albert O. Hirschman, professor at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study.
Also, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., former president of the National Urban League; Eleanor Holmes Norton, professor at Georgetown Law Center; Henry B. Schact, chairman and chief operating officer of Cummins Engine Co. in Columbus, Ind.; and Mitchell Sviridoff, director of the Community Development Research Center.
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Hanna Holborn Gray, a former president of the University of Chicago, took up the point, saying "there is a
lot of confusion about what is academic freedom." The concept is often misused, she said, warning of a risk
of "crying wolf" in claiming violations of academic freedom. "There tends nowadays to be a pattern in
which people cry foul when they're being criticized, rather than responding, which after all is the whole
purpose and point of our academic communities, with vigorous speech in return."
She used the example of political attacks that focus on Barack Obama's past connections with William
Ayers, a co-founder of the radical 1970s-era group the Weather Underground and now a professor at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. "Those who say today that Bill Ayers' academic freedom is being violated
because he is being attacked by the opponents of Barack Obama are speaking nonsense in my view," Ms.
Gray said. "He may not deserve the attacks that he is receiving, but because he is an academic does not
mean that his academic freedom is being violated, or that he is not perfectly free to speak back if he wishes
to do so or to maintain silence, as he has in a very dignified way chosen to do."
Very informative! Needs it own post so that more peope can read it.
Of all the ideas presented, taxing Social Security benefits is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. But, the honor of THE worst thing is “Reducing unemployment benefits gradually to provide greater incentive to return to work.”
Unemployment benefits are already getting reduced by being TAXED.
People are being let go left and right and unemployment benefits is all they have when you have got hundereds of people clamoring for one job. Eliminate welfare to all but those who cannot find work or are incapable of working.
For the sponges who are here illegally or who are just, too darn lazy to go out and get a job, they are the ones who don’t deserve all of these government entitlements.