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2A THE NEWS-JOtRNAL Raeford, N.C. July 9,2003 Viewpoints The poor are indeed getting poorer Sixty percent of North Carolina families with children, comprising 1.6million individuals, are not earn ing enough to meet their basic needs, according to a major policy report released by the NC Justice Cen ter. The report, entitled Working Hard is Not Enough, finds that, on average. North Carolina families with children need more than twice the income of the federal poverty level to meet their most basic needs. Even for small families with one or two children, this amounts to an average wage of $10.60 per hour. More than 600,000 North Carolina families with children simply do not earn this. Sorien K. Schmidt, co-author of the report and the non-profit, non partisan Justice Center’s Legisla tive director, says, “The problem is ... families are caught in a major restructuring of the economy. The manufacturing jobs that paid enough to support a family are permanently leaving the state and being replaced with a new economy that is divided into low-wage work and high-skill jobs. That trend did not start with the recession and it won’t end with it either.’’ The report reveals that six of the eight fastest growing occupations in the state pay average wages less than the Living Income Standard and less than average manufactur ing wages. Some, like child care, pay only $7.23 per houron average. Other fast growing job sectors, such as registered nurses, pay more but require higher or different skills than those possessed by most manu facturing workers. Neither the minimum wage (which has remained at $5.15 for six years) nor real average hourly wages have kept up with rising fam ily costs, especially child care and housing expenses. Also, wealthy households have seen a drop in the overall share of their income going to taxes, and the lax burden on middle and low-ineome North Caro lina households has risen. This means that families least able to bear the cost of increased taxes are being asked to pay the largest share of their income. Families are relying more heavily on unemployment insur ance, the Health Choice children’s health insurance program, food stamps and other government- funded services. These programs not only help families make ends meet, but they also add much needed revenue and economic activity to communities, especially in coun ties devastated by plant closings. “Since the recession began it appears that middle and low-income families have lost the income gains made in the 199()’s, while the wealthy are still experiencing income growth,” says Elizabeth Jordan, fiscal policy analyst at the N.C. Budget and Tax Center and co-author of the report. “Rural counties arc also falling far ther behind the urban. The middle class appears to be moving down ward, rather than the poor moving upward as we would hope.” Jordan says it is good new s that the report provides state leaders and the public with the information they need to define issues facing families and to deal with them. “It laysout a blueprint for addressing the issues that arc hold ing back the majority of families and ultimately, the entire state.” she say s. Among several recommendations in the report are raising the minimum wage and ensuring all public school students receive a sound basic educa tion. “Ultimately, state leaders, advo cates, workers, employers and fami lies must come together in a concerted effort,” says Schmidt, “to bring the state through this economic transfor mation and craft an improved 21st Century economy so that all hard working North Carolinians can meet their basic needs and have hope for the future.” Bur will they do that? Can’t remember where the years went There is an advantage to having a poor memory — you have less to for get. Spoken like a man who knows what it is to have many senior mo ments. If you don’t think people have good memories, try repeating a joke you told them a month ago. I really am not interesting in writ ing a column about memories; in fact, I forgot why I started it. 1 am not responsible for what 1 do during peach I season. Usually I can blame my failingson the preacher, but we now have a new one and I don’t know if he likes to sing those long songs or not. If it proves to be so, I will write more about him later. Each spring I usually get an invita tion to attend class reunions — that is if! was the principal when they were in high school. They don’t invite su perintendents. Most of them didn’t even know who the superintendent was when they were in school. Nevertheless, I received an invita tion to attend the 50th reunion of the 1953class in Gibsonville. Fortunately 1 could go. 1 was the football, basket ball, girls and boys and baseball coach A View from the Country Raz Autry in Gibsonville, without any assis tants. My supplement was $50 a month for nine months. In the summer 1 worked for the county school system, painting school rooms, mostly windows. If 1 remember correctly, the pay was $ 1.25 an hour. Big money, a lot more than I got paid for coaching. Gibsonville wasagreatlittlecom- munity, 1 really wanted to stay there for some years. No, 1 didn't get fired; my wife was pregnant and 1 needed a job that paid enough money to rear a family. 1 didn'tget it, there wasn’t aschool job around that paid enough money to rear a family. 1 took my first principalshipand it paid good money. My pay for being the principal of a union school, grades one through 12, was $400 a month for nine months. In addition 1 taught four classes, started a football team, talked the community into building a gym (we didn't have one). It was strictly a community project. When we had it nearly complete, along came Hurri cane Hazel and blew it down. Thank fully we had insurance and rebuilt it. The reunion was a grand affair. The class rented a building near lilon Uni versity, only two miles from Gibsonville. Folks in Gibsonville said that when Peahead Walker was the football coach at Elon you could Itiar him cussing in Gibsonville. The youngest member of this class was 68, I am still trying to figure out where those 50 years went. The class had a lot of highly successful folks. The preacher in the crowd was my quarterback. He gave me this senility prayer. “Lord, grant me senility to forget the people I didn't like much anyway, good fortune to keep running into those I did, and enough eyesight to tell one from the other.” My parting thought —The reason that people remember the good old days is that there were such few of them. Money and politics — our chronic fatigue syndrome “So, what are you going to do about it?” I have heard this question many times since I wrote a column recently that lamented the unhealthy depen dence of American political leaders on “big money” to fund the ever- increasing costs of mounting winning election campaigns. In my column, 1 promised to write about things we could do to make the system better. Reading a memoir by Laura Hillenbrand, the author of the New York Times best-selling book “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” theotherday, 1 remembered my prom ise. Hillenbrand suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (“CFS”), which almost destroyed her mentally and physically. The worst part of her ill ness was not knowing what was wrong with her. Doctor after doctor misdiag nosed her affliction, telling her there was nothing wrong with her physi cally and that she needed psychiatric help. Finally, she found a doctor who diagnosed her i I Iness. He told her that he could not cure CFS. But she was elated. First, because finally someone knew that her problem was real, not something she was making up. Sec ondly, because he told her that he could help her deal with the disease and make her life better. As a result, she did those things to make life better, even knowing that she was probably never going to be really healthy again. She worked on her writing, al though she often had to work from her bed. The ultimate result was the popu lar best seller about Seabiscuit, the One on One D. G. Maiiin i unheralded depression-era horse that won the hearts of the American pub lic. Maybe, 1 thought, our campaign finance syndrome is the CFS of American politics. We are probably never going to cure it, but we can and must look for every possible thing to minimize its disabling impact. Here are three of my ideas for attacking three of our worst prob lems. 1. Washington fundraising activ ity by our House Members and Sena tors. It is intimately intertwined with the job they are elected and paid to do. In Washington, our representa tives go from committee meetings to fundraising events and back to the Capitol to vote and make decisions that affect the same people they were asking for money a few minutes be fore. Most of this activity is perfectly legal. But it should not be permitted. So my proposed action is simple. Don’t allow lawmakers to con duct campaign fundraising activi ties in or from Washington, D.C., while Congress is in session. North Carolina state lawmakers are subject to a similar rule during their regular session. Believe me, it makes Raleigh a much better place. 2. Misleading, negative, 30-sec ond TV ads. They pollute the process of running for Federal office. They are unfair lo the opposition and to Ihe voters be cause there is no opportunity for con temporaneous rebuttal. Instead of a clash of ideas, our voters are hit with one-sided, misleadingcharacterizations of candidates and their posit ions on the issues. My proposed action is simple, but it will also be controversial. DuringaFedcral election ctimpaigii, anyone who produces a TV or radio ad commenting on the character or posi tions of another candidate would have to give that candidate one-third of the total time of the ad for a brief response. This requirement to provide a short rebuttal would take the poisonous sting out of the 30-second ads. But it would not take away anyone's First Amend ment rights. Candidates would be less likely to attack irresponsibly. And cam paigns would immediately become more informative, a littlebit more posi tive, and a lot less expensive. 3. The absence of balanced, com prehensive, comparative information about candidates for Federal office. Given the millions of dollars that candidates spend on the election pro cess, you would think it might be dif ferent. But, on Election Day, many voters sti 11 don t have enough informa tion about the candidates available to them. So they don’t go to vote. Or they make their decisions based upon im pressions or guesses rather than facts. It would be relatively easy to ad dress this problem. Each candidate tor Federal ottice would be permitted to provide the Fed eral Election Commission with two (See MARTIN, page 3A) \ outs We Get Letters Saddened by angel’s theft Dear News-Journal 1 was only 13 years old w hen 1 lost my 8-year-old sister. Cricket, to brain cancer. My mother wasde\'astated. as any mother would be, but she helped my brother and me get through it. One way she helped us cope was by taking us toseveral different gardening stores to find just the perfect angel statue to place on her grave. We looked for months until we finally found her. She was beautiful. She was a child with wings sitting on a cloud and looking up to heaven. 1 ler presence at my sister's grave some how gave us peace of mind and helped us see that my sister is, indeed, in a better placer and is no longer suffer ing. I’m 23 now, and I went to visit my sistcrat hergra\eon May 13. her 18th birthday. 1 was deeplysaddened when 1 realized that her angel had disap peared. I've always heard the stories about people stealing from gravesites but I newer thought they might actu ally steal from the grave of a child, especially in a community such as this that pulls together for everything. It broke my heart w hen I had to tell my mother, who now lives out of state, that our angel had been stolen. Since then I've been searching through ev ery gardening store 1 came across for an angel statue like the one we had, but I've had no success. My sister's grave remains bare.... 1 do plan to continue my search, though and I'm sure that one day I w ill find the perfect statue to take its place. 1 just hope that her new one will remain in its place beside her head stone instead of being the source of some childish prank. Maybe the per son who stole her angel will return it. and maybe they won't. If they choose to keep it, I truly hope it means as much to them as it did to my family and I. Sincerely, Amanda Holloway Worth Repeating “They (Fort Bragg) don't care about us. We don’t mean a thing. There’s no fairness in this whatso ever.’— Raeford resident Bill Moses speaking on the land use plan that would restrict development within a mileofFort Bragg andCampMackall as well as plans for a 10-mile corridor between the two military reservations. “I’d hate to see wall-to-wall subdi visions. It’s an important part of our legacy to preserve the sandhills... It’s not ‘us and them.’ They are us in a way. We need to protect Fort Bragg... We need to protect Hoke County as well.”— Commissioner Jean Powell on the same subject. The iNewS -Journal Published every Wednesday by Dickson Press, Inc., Paul Dickson President 119 W. Elwood Avenue, Raeford, North Carolina 28376 (910) 875-2121 (Call for fax number) mSBA) PRINtED WITH SOYINK Home Page: ww'w.thenews-Journal.com Robert Dickson (robert(aittionews-|6ufnai:tom) Publisher Ken MacDonald (ken@thenews-journai.com) General Manager Pat Allen Wilson (pat@thenews-journai.com) Editor Victoriana Summers (vicky@thenews-journai.com) Reporter Hal Nunn (hai@thenews-journai.com) Sports Writer Hal Nunn (hai@thenews-journai.com) Sales Representative Teena Jones (teena@thenews-journai.com) Office Manager Linda Watson (iinda@thenews-journai.com) Receptionist Rubin Thompkins (robin@thenews-journai.com) Computer Design Sandra Wiggins (sandra@ihenews-journai.com) Computer Design Henry L. 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The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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July 9, 2003, edition 1
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