LET US IN! Keep Big Money out of Government.

George Washington did not want to have political parties. He thought they would become divisive and corrupt and fail to
represent the will of the people. Well, that was before BIG MEDIA got involved. Owned by massive conglomerates, the
"news" is no longer objective and in-depth, but carries out the
message of its biggest owners.

The environment and the economic welfare of the American
people is in dire jeopardy, yet squabbling on one side and
cowardice on the other, have created leadership that will not
take a moral stand.

I hope to change all that. I encourage every ordinary, sensible,
thoughtful person to run for office- local, PTO, state level- it doesn't matter. Petitions won't create change. Demonstrations will be censored by the mainstream media. LET US IN!

Friday, December 2, 2011

America's Hungry Children- A standardized measure of recession.

from: NY Times

Lines Grow Long for Free School Meals, Thanks to Economy

Steve Hebert for The New York Times

More than 100 students eat a free dinner daily after classes at Ingels Elementary School in Kansas City, Mo. The Hickman Mills C-1 district feared students would otherwise go to bed hungry.

By SAM DILLON

Published: November 29, 2011

Millions of American schoolchildren are receiving free or low-cost meals for the first time as their parents, many once solidly middle class, have lost jobs or homes during the economic crisis, qualifying their families for the decades-old safety-net program.

Multimedia

Interactive Map

Rates of Increase in Subsidized Lunches

The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.
The Agriculture Department has not yet released data for September and October.
“These are very large increases and a direct reflection of the hardships American families are facing,” said Benjamin Senauer, a University of Minnesota economist who studies the meals program, adding that the surge had happened so quickly “that people like myself who do research are struggling to keep up with it.”
In Sylva, N.C., layoffs at lumber and paper mills have driven hundreds of new students into the free lunch program. In Las Vegas, where the collapse of the construction industry has caused hardship, 15,000 additional students joined the subsidized lunch program this fall. Around Rochester, unemployed engineers and technicians have signed up their children after the downsizing of Kodak and other companies forced them from their jobs. Many of these formerly middle-income parents have pleaded with school officials to keep their enrollment a secret.
Students in families with incomes up to 130 percent of the poverty level — or $29,055 for a family of four — are eligible for free school meals. Children in a four-member household with income up to $41,348 qualify for a subsidized lunch priced at 40 cents.
Among the first to call attention to the increases were Department of Education officials, who use subsidized lunch rates as a poverty indicator in federal testing. This month, in releasing results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they noted that the proportion of the nation’s fourth graders enrolled in the lunch program had climbed to 52 percent from 49 percent in 2009, crossing a symbolic watershed.
In the Rockdale County Schools in Conyers, Ga., east of Atlanta, the percentage of students receiving subsidized lunches increased to 63 percent this year from 46 percent in 2006.
“We’re seeing people who were never eligible before, never had a need,” said Peggy Lawrence, director of school nutrition.
One of those is Sheila Dawson, a Wal-Mart saleswoman whose husband lost his job as the manager of a Waffle House last year, reducing their income by $45,000. “We’re doing whatever we can to save money,” said Ms. Dawson, who has a 15-year-old daughter. “We buy clothes at the thrift store, we see fewer movies and this year my daughter qualifies for reduced-price lunch.”
She added, “I feel like: ‘Hey, we were paying taxes all these years. This is what they were for.’ ”