Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

World Refugee Day was created by the United Nations and is celebrated every year on June 20.

When Murtadha Al-Shaikhli arrived at his familys Dublin doorstep in January 2018, his parents didnt recognize him.

He was 26, and they hadnt seen him in six years.

"The last time they saw me, I was like a kid without a beard," Al-Shaikhli said.

Born in Baghdad, Al-Shaikhli lived with his family through the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 before they fled to Jordan in 2006 amid Iraqs civil war. They struggled to meet basic needs, such as clean water, gas and electricity, and their freedom was limited.

They were separated in 2012 when he was studying civil engineering in Ukraine and his parents, brother and two sisters moved to the United States, settling in Dublin.

Now the family is among the more than 16,000 refugees who have resettled in the Columbus area since 1983, according to the 2015 Impact of Refugees in Central Ohio Report by Community Research Partners. Their plight is highlighted today by World Refugee Day, which is designated by the United Nations and observed annually on June 20.

Angela Plummer, executive director of Community Refugee and Immigration Services, one of two resettlement agencies serving central Ohio, sees the day as one to honor the strength of refugees and to build understanding.

"The refugee experience is not knowing and being in someone elses hands for a long, long time," Plummer said.

CRIS typically hosts a festival with food and games to celebrate the various cultures of central Ohios refugees, who come from countries as far-flung as Somalia, Iraq and Bhutan. This year, however, CRIS is recognizing World Refugee Day virtually because of the coronavirus by putting together a video featuring refugees explaining what the day means to them and why it is important.

"We hope having these conversations and having refugees speak for themselves and tell their own stories can help bridge the gap," Plummer said.

After leaving Iraq, Al-Shaikhli never spent a lot of time in one place. He finished high school in Egypt, then moved to Ukraine, where he received a college degree in 2014. Once his family moved to America, he spent six years being repeatedly rejected for a visa, and the final year navigating President Donald Trumps restrictions on refugees from majority-Muslim countries.

Al-Shaikhli, 28, said he never lost hope, though. He kept thinking about his mom, who would visit the CRIS office each week to check the status of his case. When his background check was approved in August 2017, he started thinking about how he could make his arrival as memorable as possible.

"When I was thinking about this event, I was thinking that this is a moment that will never be repeated, I hope," Al-Shaikhli said. "So I was thinking what to do with that, and I couldnt think of anything except that I have to surprise them."

Al-Shaikhli met his brother and Plummer at the airport the night his flight landed in Columbus. He remembers his parents crying when he arrived unannounced at their house and they realized that it was really him, finally reunited with them.

Plummer said CRIS hasnt had new refugees come through its office since mid-March due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before that, she said, the agencys numbers had been lower since the beginning of Trumps presidency. During the first half of this fiscal year, CRIS resettled about 45 refugees, compared with about 500 refugees it would resettle in an entire year during past administrations, according to Plummer.

Al-Shaikhli was the only Iraqi refugee to resettle in Columbus during the 2018 fiscal year. He said that his biggest challenge has been learning English, his third language after Arabic and Russian. Still, he said, people are generally patient with him.

"Here, when I speak something and someone doesnt understand me, they try to teach me," Al-Shaikhli said. "They do their best to understand me or teach me the correct way to say it."

Four months after he moved to Ohio, Al-Shaikhli got a job as a structural designer at SMBH Inc., an engineering firm in Grandview Heights. Stephen Metz, SMBHs president, described Al-Shaikhli as a go-getter.

"In my mind, I would think that having some of the background that hes had, he might not be as optimistic and upbeat as he is," Metz said. "Maybe some of that is because hes here and not some of the places hes been in the past."

Al-Shaikhli is also a member of CRIS Refugee Speakers Bureau, through which he encourages fellow refugees to get an education and break down common stereotypes.

"I feel a responsibility to do something for this community for the refugees," he said. "If you tell someone that youre a refugee, the first thing that pops up in his or her mind is low-wage or minimum-wage people working in a warehouse or people who are illegal or people who dont pay taxes. I just wanted to change this background around refugees."

Today, Al-Shaikhli lives with his family in Hilliard. After two and a half years in central Ohio, he said, he no longer needs GPS to guide him as he drives. He finally feels like he has a place to call home.

"I feel that this city is my city now," he said. "Now when I say, Im from Columbus, I mean it."

mfenter@dispatch.com

@maya_with_a_y

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For one Iraqi refugee, Columbus finally feels like home this World Refugee Day - The Columbus Dispatch

Troy H. Middletons name will be removed from LSUs main library, with the LSU Board of Supervisors unanimously approving the measure at its Friday meeting as part of an effort to eliminate racist symbols from campus.

Middleton, who served as president of LSU from 1951 to 1962 and as an infantry officer in both world wars, has been viewed as the face of segregation at the university since the disclosure of a letter he wrote in 1961, saying LSU kept black students separate from white students.

History will not be erased. It is well-documented, said board chair Mary Werner. But today we can change the mission that is LSU by welcoming every student, young and old, black and white, any nationality, that they are welcomed, their comments, their studies, their work here is valued and respected.

Earlier in the meeting, Gov. John Bel Edwards urged the board to remove Middletons name from the library. He was later joined in his remarks by LSU administrators, student body president Stone Cox and black and white board members, as well as Katrina Dunn, president of LSUs A.P. Tureaud Sr. Black Alumni chapter, who called the move a reckoning.

However, the decision was denounced by the Middleton family, who argued the controversial 1961 letter served as an incomplete picture of a man, who later chaired Gov. John McKeithens Biracial Commission on Human Relations, Rights and Responsibilities and consequently changed his views on integration.

Speaking on behalf of Middletons legacy was former state Rep. Woody Jenkins, who said it was unfair to pull out one or two comments from the 1950s or early 1960s and not tell the whole story about Middleton, who Jenkins said would go on to push for the implementation of civil rights law in Louisiana.

Still, board members argued Middletons treatment of black studentsincluding what Supervisor James Williams described as his repeated efforts to make clear he didnt want black students to attend the universitywarranted the dissociation of his name from the library.

We need to preserve history, but we need not honor every historical moment or every historical person, said Supervisor Jimmie Woods, whose black mother-in-law was barred from eating in LSUs cafeteria and starting a black sorority under Middletons leadership.

Diversity training will be established across all departments at LSU, Werner said. In August, the board will also establish a new standing committee, pending board approval: the Committee on Social Equity, Justice and Inclusion.

Significantly, said LSU interim President Tom Galligan, the item was approved on Juneteenth, which commemorates the freedom of the last enslaved black people in America two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

While its cause for celebration, Galligan said, let this also be a day of reflection for LSU and our country as we work towards true equality and freedom for all.

Among other items discussed at Fridays meeting was the 1.7% budget reduction expected systemwide through fiscal year 2021 as well as LSUs plans to reopen its campus this fall, which will include classroom occupancy being kept to 50% capacity.

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Troy H. Middleton's name to be removed from LSU's main library - Greater Baton Rouge Business Report

Im excited, Mayor Bruce Teague said at the end of the Iowa City Councils special formal session on Tuesday night.

The almost four-and-a-half-hour meeting followed the city councils two-hour-long normal formal meeting, and was devoted to developing a plan to address the social justice issues that have come to forefront as a result of local and national protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.

Were not all the way there, dont get me wrong, Teague said at the end of the special formal session. He added, This is amazing.

The city council unanimously passed a 17-point resolution that covers topics from affordable housing to police reform, and even added a new holiday to the citys official calendar. It also approved a resolution empowering the mayor to send a letter to the Johnson County Attorney asking her to drop all charges against people involved in the protests led by the Iowa City Freedom Riders (IFR).

The resolution was drafted largely in response to a list of demands IFR published last week. At the beginning of the special session, Mayor Teague thanked Councilmember Laura Bergus for her work in drafting the resolution. Bergus is the only practicing attorney on the city council. (Councilmember Janice Weiner briefly practiced law before her career in the diplomatic service.)

The full name of the resolution indicates the width of its scope: Resolution of Initial Council Commitments addressing the Black Lives Matter Movement and Systemic Racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police and calls for action from protesters and residents.

In addition to the demands published by IFR, Teague said the resolution had been influenced by hundreds of emails the city has received in the past three weeks, as well as many conversations with Iowa Citians, both in person and on the phone.

The resolution calls for the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Oct. 1. The commission is intended to bear witness to the truth of racial injustice in Iowa City and to carry out restorative justice through the collection of testimony and public hearings. Details regarding the commission will be determined during future city council work sessions, but Mayor Teague made it clear he considers the commission to be essential in helping the city council determine policies regarding topics such as affordable housing, policing practices and increasing diversity among the citys staff.

As part of the resolution, the city council committed to spending $1 million during the fiscal year that begins on July 1 to promote racial equity and social justice through, among other things, supporting the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and creating a new affordable housing plan.

While all the councilmembers were in agreement about the commission, there was some disagreement regarding the new affordable housing program.

Councilmember Mazahir Salih wanted to add wording to the resolution to make sure the plans would address the need for affordable housing downtown and in Iowa Citys core neighborhoods (which the city has previously defined as the Northside, College Green, Bowery, Longfellow, Mark Twain, Riverfront Crossings East, Riverfront Crossing West, Miller/Orchard, and Brookland/Roosevelt neighborhoods), but Councilmember Susan Mims pushed back against the idea.

Mims said she wasnt in favor of naming downtown and the core neighborhoods in the resolution because that is the most expensive place for providing affordable housing, because land costs are the highest. So, I guess we have to make a balance between the number units [of affordable housing] wed like to provide and location.

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Salih responded that the expensive nature of the real estate is exactly why we want affordable housing there. She added, the core neighborhood is not only for people who have money, its not only for business people, its supposed to be for everyone.

The language in the resolution was adjusted to say the affordable housing plan would include but not be limited to downtown and the core neighborhoods.

Another part of the resolution provoked more uncertainty than disagreement.

The resolution calls on the city to elevate its commitment to racial equity and social justice and increase resources devoted to those efforts as needed.

After some discussion of what particular actions could be taken, Bergus said, I think the intent of our resolution tonight is to be that initial commitment. It makes sense to me that it will be broader than ultimately where we want to land. We will get the specifics, and I think were counting on each other and the public to hold us accountable.

Weiner agreed.

I view it a little bit as a constitution, she said. Like an overarching guiding document that that will be essentially our loadstar as we work on each of these items.

Teague added that is will be one of the issues the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will consider.

Most of the resolution focuses on police issues.

City Manager Geoff Fruin has been tasked with preparing a report on the involvement of the Iowa City Police Department in the incident on June 3, when law enforcement officers under the command of the Iowa State Patrol used flash-bang grenades and tear gas against protesters on Dubuque Street who were marching to I-80.

Fruin said he intends to ask the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) to review the incident. The DCI is often used to investigate actions of local law enforcement agencies, and reviewed both shootings of suspects by ICPD officers that occurred in 2019.

The resolution calls from Fruin to deliver his report by Aug. 1.

Other parts of the resolution call for:

a report on any military-grade equipment ICPD has

a prohibition on the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs against peaceful protesters

a total ban on the use of chokeholds or any other maneuver that cuts off oxygen or blood flow

a review of how ICPD is ensure its officers comply with its policy on the use of body cams

requiring ICPD officers to intervene and stop any use of excessive force by another law enforcement officer and immediately report the incident to a supervisor

ensure that ICPD hiring practices prohibit employment of anyone who committed serious misconduct at another law enforcement agency

prepare a report on how the Community Police Review Board can more effectively provide oversight of ICPD

publish online a detailed expenditure summary of the ICPD budget

ask Iowa Citys state legislators to work on any changes in state law needed for the city to make the changes included in the resolution

But the biggest change regarding the police department was addressed in the first of the resolutions 17 sections.

By December 15, 2020, develop a preliminary plan to restructure the Iowa City Police Department (ICPD) towards community policing, including, but not limited to, reduction of the publics reliance on police in non-violent situations through the use of unarmed professionals, and consideration of community policing initiatives in other cities, including, but not limited to, Minneapolis, MN, Camden, NJ, Los Angeles, CA and San Francisco, CA.

The Dec. 15 date is intended to provide enough time to develop a thorough preliminary plan, but make sure it is presented to the city council before it starts work on the ICPDs next budget.

At the end of the special session, Councilmember Weiner said she had one addition to make to the resolution. She suggested making Juneteenth an annual occasion commemorating the news of the abolition of slavery reaching enslaved people in Texas, the last major stronghold of the Confederacy a city holiday. The council unanimously approved the addition.

Staring next year, Juneteenth which is celebrated on June 19 will be an official city holiday, replacing one of its existing holidays.

In addition to the resolution, the city council also approved a measure empowering the mayor to write a letter to the Johnson County Attorney, asking her to dismiss all outstanding charges against people who participated in the protests.

Councilmembers Pauline Taylor and Susan Mims were unsure if all the charges should be dropped, since some including two OWIs and one charge of possession of firearms under the influence were more serious than simple traffic violations. Salih insisted that all the charges be dropped, because she believed they were the result of the police targeting protesters.

Councilmember John Thomas said he had gone back and forth on whether all the charges or just some of them should be dropped. But he eventually decided the historic moment the city is experiencing made dropping all the charges appropriate.

Mayor Teague said he agreed, and he also pointed out that Iowa City and Johnson County frequently use a light hand when it comes to policing some infractions.

We see it all the time for football games here, Teague said. Theres an acceptance of behavior that would not tolerated any other time. And of course, once the game is over, things are back to normal.

Teague said he and other officials had been having discussions regarding safety with IFR organizers, and those conversations would continue.

All the councilmembers voted in favor of the letter, except Bergus, who abstained because voting on an issue regarding criminal charges was a potential conflict of interest for her as a practicing attorney.

By the end of the special formal meeting, the city council had addressed all the demands IFR had directed to the city. (IFR has other demands directed to the Iowa City Community School District and Gov. Kim Reynolds.)

On its Instagram page, IFR celebrated the quick action by the city council.

IFR announced on Sunday, it had no protests scheduled for either Wednesday or Thursday.

Originally posted here:

'This is amazing,' says mayor as Iowa City Council passes resolution to restructure ICPD and address other demands of the Iowa Freedom Riders - Little...

Letter to the editor from Frank Salomone

June 19, 1865 was a great day in America as enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation took place to free people from enslavement. After the Civil War in the United States, people of African Descent faced incredible trials of Racism and Murder. For some, the war was not over.

How did one get ahead in this environment? Booker T. Washington, a member of the Republican Party whom I greatly admire, tried a different tactic than other leaders. He sought to advance people through education and entrepreneurship. He built up an incredible network of middle class, church leaders, philanthropists, and politicians to advance people.

The entrepreneurship aspect of an approach like this is very important. In my opinion, a goal for people should be to reach a level of economic independence or self-sufficiency, and we should have laws that support those that agree and believe in that statement. This is not a new idea, as Romans such as Cato the Elder recognized this, and pursued it. The more you can strengthen yourself against a possibility of Racism that can damage you economically, the more you can make it irrelevant to you.

As a member of the Republican Town Committee, and the District Leader of District 1, I will be hosting political candidate meet and greets to address the issues of any legal or fiscal impediments to people of all races to be able to engage in entrepreneurship and achieve economic self-sufficiency. The benefits will be a stronger society, a way for racism to become irrelevant, and for people to thrive in freedom, not just survive. A good way to start can be to work off the existing model that Booker T. Washington created.

Lets not think of June 19 as one day to recognize freedom, but rather as a time to reflect on how we advance it each and every day.

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Salomone: Juneteenth and Today - Greenwich Free Press

AP-US-HOUSTON-POLICE-SHOOTINGS

Texas man whose son was killed by police wants videos

HOUSTON (AP) A Texas man whose son was shot and killed by Houston police in April is calling for law enforcement officials to release any videos related to the encounter. KPRC-TV reports that the request from Joaqun Chavez comes after a bystander posted cellphone video on YouTube that appears to show Nicolas Chavez on his knees when officers shot him on April 27. Houston police have said they believe the 27-year-old charged at officers with an object. Police have not released videos from officers body cameras. The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice is trying to get the Houston Police Department to release videos of six recent shootings.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-TEXAS

Multiple Texas cities and counties adopting mask orders

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Multiple Texas counties and cities are ordering businesses to require customers and workers to wear face masks as part of efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The moves come as the continues to see rising numbers of new cases and hospitalizations. Dallas County passed its ordinance Friday morning. It joins Bexar County, the city of Austin, El Paso County and others who adopted measures with fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 for businesses that dont comply. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott won't issued a statewide order for masks, but has said local governments could issue such orders for businesses.

AP-US-VIRUS-OUTBREAK-CRUISE-SHIPS

Cruise lines extend COVID-19 pause on sailing from the US

MIAMI (AP) The Cruise Lines International Association is announcing that ships will not be sailing from U.S. ports throughout the summer, extending a pause put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. The current no-sail order issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 14 is set to expire July 24. The association says cruise lines have decided to voluntarily prolong this pause until Sept. 15 because they need time to resolve barriers" with U.S. authorities to restart sailing. Carnival Cruise Line had announced last month that it was planning to restart cruising from Florida and Texas in August. The suspension now extends until Sept. 15.

PEOPLE-HURRICANE CHRIS-ARREST

Rapper Hurricane Chris arrested for murder in Louisiana

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) Rap artist Hurricane Chris has been arrested on a murder charge in Louisiana. Shreveport Police say the rapper was arrested Friday after an early-morning shooting at a gas station. In a news release, police say the rapper claimed self-defense after shooting a man he thought was trying to steal his car. But they say video footage appears to show otherwise, and the car was reported as stolen from Texas. Online jail records don't indicate if he has an attorney who can speak on his behalf. The 31-year-old rapper is known for the hit A Bay Bay. His real name is Christopher Dooley Jr., and he hails from Shreveport.

JUNETEENTH-FAITH COMMUNITIES

Unrest and virus make Juneteenth activist and reflective

Christopher Johnson says he once saw Juneteenth as a celebration, a symbol that African Americans had moved past the stain of racism and slavery. The co-pastor of Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston says the deaths this year of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks, at the hands of law enforcement and self-styled neighborhood vigilantes are turning the holiday into a time of reflection and a reminder every generation has to fight for its freedom and that freedom is never really won. In many ways, he says, the U.S. of 1865 is the U.S. of 2020.

AP-US-SUPREME-COURT-IMMIGRATION

Trump says he will renew effort to end DACA protections

PHOENIX (AP) President Donald Trump says he'll renew his effort to end legal protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the United States as children. Trump on Friday denounced a Supreme Court ruling that the administration improperly ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017. Through executive action, Trump could still take away the ability of 650,000 young immigrants to live and work legally in the U.S. With no legislative answer in sight in Congress, uncertainty continues for many immigrants who know no other home except America, but many are vowing to keep fighting for the program and for a pathway to citizenship.

AP-US-HOUSTON-EXPLOSION

Video: Suspects doused Houston bar with liquid before blast

HOUSTON (AP) Authorities say they're looking for at least four individuals who doused chairs and tables at a Houston bar with a flammable liquid, leading to an explosion that heavily damaged the bar and surrounding homes but caused no serious injuries. In surveillance video released Thursday by Houston Fire Department arson investigators, the unidentified males can be seen carrying 5 gallon containers and pouring the liquid over furniture on a deck outside Bar 5015 early on June 12. Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pea says the suspects were trying to burn down the bar but instead caused an explosion that caused $750,000 in damage.

TESLA-FACTORY

$68 million tax breaks may go to put Tesla plant to Austin

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) An Austin-area school district is considering offering more than $60 million in tax incentives to attract a proposed Tesla gigafactory to Central Texas. Tesla revealed the Del Valle Independent School District proposal in an application filed Thursday with the Texas comptroller's office. The district would offer Tesla $68 million in property tax breaks over 10 years to build on a 2,100-acre site just off Texas 130 on Austins southeastern outskirts. Travis County commissioners are considering a separate tax incentive package. Austin is competing with Tulsa, Oklahoma, to become the city to host the plant that builds Tesla's electric pickup truck.

AMERICA PROTESTS-TEXAS

Austin city leaders weigh cutting 100 police vacancies

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Austin would cut 100 police officer vacancies and postpone the graduation of its July cadets as part of a broader effort to overhaul its police department. City Manager Spencer Cronk on Thursday sent a memo to the City Council in which he proposed several changes to how the police department should operate. Among other things, he proposed creating a team to lead the citys police reform efforts that would be made up of city leaders focused on safety, health, environment and culture. The council voted last week to eliminate the police vacancies and to not hire additional officers until after the next fiscal year, at the earliest.

TV-HOLLAND TAYLOR-ANN RICHARDS

Holland Taylor's Ann Richards: 'A woman for all seasons'

LOS ANGELES (AP) Holland Taylor earned a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of charismatic Texas politician Ann Richards, but the actor also deserves acclaim as a researcher and playwright. Taylor crafted the solo play Ann after digging into Richards life and character. An adaptation of the play is airing Friday on PBS Great Performances showcase. In creating the work, Taylor earned a deeper appreciation of the tart-tongued Democrat, who died in 2006. Ann proved a highlight of Taylors wide-ranging career, which includes Two and a half Men and the new limited series Hollywood. Holland Taylor also is in the upcoming movie sequel Bill & Ted Face the Music.

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Latest Texas news, sports, business and entertainment at 9:20 pm CDT - KBTX

As the government gets set to deliver a revised budget on June 24 to deal with the damage unleashed on the South African economy by Covid-19, some economists and analysts are calling for tax relief and other business-friendly measures. This comes as many companies have collapsed or are in financial difficulty as a result of lockdown measures. Among those urging extensive tax relief and grants even though government debt is rising are Dr Lawrence McCrystal and Advocate Hein van der Walt of the Confederation of Employers of South Africa, who have put forward a detailed argument, below, about why this is the smart thing to do. Others expect the rich to be hit with more tax as Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has warned that we are much poorer. There are signs that Mboweni will take us by surprise, as he told lawmakers on Thursday that the Treasury plans to make very serious and unusual changes to its expenditure plans. Jackie Cameron

Dear President Ramaphosa and Minister Mboweni,

Cc Ministers,Presidential Councillors, Mr Willie van der Schyf, Dr Gerhard Koornhof, Mr Derek Hanekom and valued teams

Cofesa calls for

Wesupport MinisterTito Mbowenisexpected unveiling of a major shake-up in spending and revenue forecasts for the recession-hit economy, your new approach to allow the government to refocus attention on growth-enhancing initiatives and share your view that we can no longer take for granted that the baseline that was there last year will always be the case.

Even before Corona, taxpayers have passed breaking point and a decline of R63,3 bn less in tax income was expected which Finance Minister Tito Mboweni in May estimated to a fall in tax revenue by 32% or more. (Fin24 on 4th May 2020); a terrifying downward spiral.

A study by SEDA, a subsidiary of the DTI, has reported a first year failure rate of 75% for small businesses while Mr Alec Hogg reported in 2011 the average cost of one job created by the IDC amounts to R250 000.

The high costs of and dismal failure of emergent businesses merit substantial government grants to ensure the recovery and sustainability of existing businesses.

A precedent has been set to award R35000 each to small farmers andR200 million relief funding for tourism.

Similarly cash grantsacross the boardshould be paid directly to companies in a bid to rescue those in distress, to stimulate the economy and to avoid further job losses estimated at potentially 2 million.

Minimum of R500 000 grants

Instead of the DTI and IDC investing in emergent enterprises with a 75% failure rate all existing registered businesses should be awarded a basic minimum grant of R500000 plus compensation for their loss in turnover.

Only about R13bn has been paid out so far by the UIF. This is only 10% of the R130bn surplus held in the UIF that is meant for national disasters such as Covid-19. To make an impact, we appeal to you that a large portion of the surplus, supplemented if possible, from other Government sources, be paid out as distress grants to make an impact.

A large number of our Member Companies are struggling to keep their operations from drowning because they have had no cash inflow while cash has been flowing out to pay salaries, rent, etc. So now they have used up their cash reserves and have minimal cash to get their operations going.

Repayable loans will not solve our economic malaise. It is time consuming and costly to administer by an already bloated government bureaucracy. Grants instead, will directly and immediately stimulate spending with a ripple effect, including to generate tax.

It is within the ambit of the UIF Board to pre-empt an estimated further 2 million job losses linked to Covid-19. Employers have contributed substantially to the fund and it is morally and logically correct to use the funds to rescue businesses. While workers contributed 1% of their total earnings, excluding commission, to the UIF, employers contributed a further 1%.

UIF surpluses have also accrued due to many contributors who have emigrated and left their benefits behind, also by contributors such as senior staff and company directors who tend to abandon their benefits, as well as long deceased people. The fund also accrued an estimated R70-bn income on investments over the last 10 years.

Timely distress grants will pro-actively rescue thousands of businesses, including hairdressers and B&Bs, avoiding later reactive costly government enterprise development efforts which, in any event, have a historic failure rate of 75%.

Already in 2019, The World Economic Freedom Index,an index designed by sixty of the worlds top scholars from many disciplines, including three Nobel Laureates, were deeply concerned byour overly large government for a nation at its stage of development.

Nurture businesses, including SMMEs and micro enterprises. Reduced tax will be a direct incentive for growth.

The economists of theWorld Economic Freedom Indexfound that our very high, top marginal tax rate discourages the initiative and dynamism South Africa needs to build prosperity. South Africas top marginal income tax rate at 41 percent is considerably higher than Botswanas (25 percent), the subSahara African average (33.17 percent), and the world average (28.98 percent). This puts South Africa at a considerable disadvantage compared to its competitors.

Even before Covid 19, president Donald Trump and the UK reduced company tax: We must follow Americas example where President Donald Trump reduced company tax from 35% to 21% to turn his economy around, the United Kingdom from 30% to 19%, and in Chinas CIT rate is currently 25%.

From 2015 the number of companies registered at SARS declined from 3,2 million to the present 2 million.The increase in VAT directly affected consumer spending and caused the collapse of large clothing retailers.

A small tax base of 574 000 individuals contributes almost 20% of all tax in SA.A constant spiral of worsening fiscal statistics and higher taxes have been feeding a growing sense of despair about the countrys prospects. The Finance Minister can break that cycle which, hopefully, will boost consumer confidence.

Treasurys scenarios showed that more than7 million jobscould be shed (in addition to the present 10 m unemployed?) as a result of the virus and lockdown that has hugely reduced economic activity. Manufacturing, construction, trade, catering and accommodation, as well as financial and business services will be the worst-affected sectors.

Deregulation of business in general, and specifically small and medium enterprises will broaden the tax base, generate tax income and lighten governments burden to provide welfare grants. Picking the low hanging fruit will be at zero cost to Government and, we calculate, could generate, over time, between 22m and 30m jobs in S.A. plus more than 50m jobs on the African continent, and regain our lost position in relation to comparable economies.

A 121stranking for business regulation disastrous for job creation

The international panel of economists of the World Economic Freedom Index ranks South Africa 121ston business regulation and noted that few challenges are more important for South Africa than job creation and for that it needs to free its business to create employment. Overly stringent regulation can slow business expansion and weaken profits, which are both the means of further investment and the motivation for further investment. 121stranking is a disastrous rank for South Africa and means that red tape is strangling businesss ability to create jobs and prosperity.

Despite the economic boom experienced in the country between 2004 and 2006, the growth of small businesses has stagnated since 2003. Our remaining SMMEs not only need protection, but we need to see them rapidly growing in numbers.

The Index referred to above noted a big concern regarding burdensome regulations.

Registered companies declined from 3,2 million to the present 2 million

From 2015 the number of companies registered at SARS declined from 3,2 million to the present 2 million.Start-ups declined from 250000 (2001) to 58000 (2011)and have been declining ever since.

SMEs have been under particular strain over the last 10 years

Financial and business services sector: 83 000 fewer companies (37% decline). (From 222 532 in 2007 to 139 664 in 2016 )

Start-ups declined from 250000 (2001) to 58000 (2011) and have been declining ever since.

When we had 5, 579,767 small businesses in 2011, they employed an estimated 12 million people countrywide (Source: jtb consulting). This has declined substantially since then, primarily because of the Governments laws and future regulations of Minister Nxesi will make it even worse.

Loss of entrepreneurs Diaspora/brain drain: More than 400 000 high income professionals plus their families have emigrated since 1994 and millions of remaining individuals are utilising the easing of foreign exchange controls to let their money emigrate. (Thank you for calling for their return).About 3 000 super-rich(those with wealth of $1million or R15million or more) migrated from South Africa over the past 10 years, Andrew Amoils, head of research at New World Wealth, told Fin24 inApril 2019.The monthly loss in tax is estimated to be between R10 bn and R20 bn.

Consequently deregulation will make some government directorates and departments redundant, save costs and enable tax reduction

Empirical evidence proves that governments cannot create entrepreneurs. Only businesses, business leaders, enterprises and entrepreneurs can nurture and breed new enterprises.

Failure of government initiatives indicates that it is time to close those directorates, abort those initiatives and save billions. Enter intonew accords with chambers of business, trade, industry and commerce for enterprise development.

Initiatives of government directorates, departments and agencies to create enterprises and entrepreneurs have failed. They should be aborted to save billions of Rands and enable tax reduction.

Our overly large government is a deep concern World Economic Freedom Index

The international team of economists questions as to whether South Africans are getting value for their tax money. Does their money go to providing a sound, well-functioning legal system and security that promotes well-being, and delivers essential services? Or is much of it wasted or stolen? they enquired and noted its concern regarding high taxation and our oversized government. Consequently downsizing government will reduce costs and enable tax reduction.

Austerity calls for urgent action

Overly large government spending and taxation can crowd out other economic activity and limit peoples economic freedom, and their ability to power growth and job creation.Nations that have outsized governments relative to the size of their domestic economy are penalised in economic growth and job creation. South Africas overall rank in Size of Government is 140thand its rating is 6.04.The low rating is a cause for deep concern for a nation at its stage of development.

Measured on a GDP per capita basis, the five nations ranked just above South Africa have an average score of 7.03 in the area Size of Government. Coincidentally, this is the same score of the five nations ranked just below South Africa when measured in GDP per capita terms. However, these nations are a full point ahead of South Africa in their EFWscore which shows just how large the South African government has become in relation to the size of the economy.

After improving somewhat in Size of Government after Apartheid, South Africa regressed significantly in the 2000s.Over the last decade, scores have fallen substantially, indicating government growth and weakening economic freedom in South Africa.

The Index found government interference in the economy through government enterprises and investment is far too great and weakens both economic freedom and the dynamism of the private sector.

Picking low hanging fruit will be at zero cost to Government and, we calculate, could generate, over time, between 22m and 30m jobs in SA plus more than 50m jobs on the African continent, and regain our lost position in relation to these countries: we must deregulate to unleash prosperity.

The 2019 Index scores SAs failure against

We look forward to a game-changer for South Africa.

South Korea and China looked insignificant before embarking on major reforms. The Covid-19 crisis creates an opportunity tofix an economic strategythat has failed to generate the growth necessary to create a better life for more than a minority.

God bless the brave

Dr Lawrence McCrystal and Adv Hein van der Walt

Cofesa Confederation of Employers of SA

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Dear Tito: Heres where to cut tax, make grants to save SA. MUST READ! #budget - BizNews

Monetary debt can be difficult as it can cripple your fiscal freedom and bring you financial hardships. Furthermore, having debt can make it hard to buy a car or get a mortgage for your home. It can also harm your emotional and mental well-being because of stress.

There are numerous methods on how to reduce or get rid of debt; one of those options is through debt settlements. If you currently have considerable debt and looking for ways on how to improve your financial condition, you are in the perfect place. Read on to know about debt settlement.

Debt settlement, known as debt adjustment or debt relief, is a process of resolving debt for a lesser amount than what is owed initially. A substantial lump-sum payment that ranges from 10% to 50% of what is owed is used to resolve the previous debt.

A report from the American Fair Credit Council (AFCC) states that more than 90% of debt settlements result in debt reduction that is greater than the previous fees. Also, most of the participants reach agreements on their accounts within six months of starting the program.

Debt settlement has numerous benefits, which include some of the following.

One of the main advantages ofdebt settlementprograms is that the original amount you owe can be lowered to a more affordable amount. If you previously owe $10,000, it can be diminished to as much as $5,000.

Reducing your debt by up to 50% can be of great help, especially if you are currently experiencing extreme financial hardships.

When you declare bankruptcy, assets that you have may be claimed by the lender. These may include properties, land ownership, and cars, to name a few. Your financial troubles will also be a matter of public record, which could affect your employment options in the future. This is because most employers and companies evaluate their applicants credit histories.

Declaring bankruptcy may not be a good option for some individuals. Fortunately, debt settlement programs offer a practical alternative.

Talking to and dealing with creditors and collectors can be quite a hassle. It can also be humiliating because some people might find out that you are in debt and cant pay up.

These things can affect your self-confidence and self-esteem, which can hurt your emotional and mental wellness. Through debt settlement programs, you will be able to get debt collectors and creditors off your back.

Negotiating your debt with creditors can be tempting; the problem is you might mess things up and make the situation even worse. It would be best that you consult a debt settlement company to negotiate your financial issues on your behalf.

Debt settlement companies have the competence and experience to negotiate your settlement for you, helping you get a better deal in the process.

However, not all settlement companies in the market today are legitimate, which means you should be wary of companies that you consult and do transactions with. You can never go wrong in consulting settlement companies that are reliable and trusted.

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Debt settlement: An effective way of reducing debt - AZ Big Media

By U.S. Sen. Mike RoundsR-South Dakota

The United States military is the best in the world. Our all-volunteer force is made up of men and women from different backgrounds and different states, but what they all have in common is a love of country and a desire to serve.

We are eternally grateful to them and their families for the incredible sacrifices they make to protect our freedoms. One way we can show our thanks is by making sure they have the tools and resources necessary to do their job. In Congress, we do this by passing a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) each year.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, which Ive worked on since coming to the Senate in 2015, recently voted to approve the NDAA for fiscal year 2021. It will be debated by the full Senate before we vote on final passage. Our committee put in a lot of work this year on the NDAA and Im pleased that we were once again able to pass it with strong bipartisan support. In fact, this will be the 60th consecutive year that we will have passed a widely-supported NDAA.

As our near-peer competitors, like China and Russia, continue to grow their own militaries, its critically important that the U.S. makes sure our troops have better weapons systems, better tools and more resources than our adversaries.

We never want to send our men and women into a fair fight we always want them to have the advantage. The NDAA authorizes Department of Defense (DoD) programs and provides defense policy to make sure the United States maintains irreversible momentum when it comes to implementing the National Defense Strategy.

The National Defense Strategy provides clear direction for restoring our militarys competitive edge in an era of re-emerging, long-term great power competition. The B-21 Raider bombers coming to Ellsworth Air Force Base in the near future are a part of this long-term National Defense Strategy. As I said earlier, we have the best armed forces in the world, but we need to make sure we remain the best well into the future.

One of the ways we can do this is by improving the way the DoD hires personnel. The NDAA includes language to improve recruitment and retention efforts to maintain the force, while also offering more flexibility to hire civilian talent. In particular, the DoD needs highly-skilled, brilliant cybersecurity professionals to help improve the cybersecurity efforts of our armed forces.

In some cases, the most qualified cyber personnel could be private sector cybersecurity personnel serving in the National Guard or Reserve. Dakota State University (DSU) in Madison has been at the forefront of cyber-related research for years. As a National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security Center of Academic Excellence, DSU is preparing its students for government careers in cybersecurity.

Just like the FY 2020 NDAA, this one includes a pay raise for our troops. Military families are recognized in the NDAA as wellweve included language to increase access to high-quality child care for military families and to improve military housing. When a husband or wife is deployed, the last thing we want is for spouses to have to worry about home repair issues or finding a good daycare for their kids when theyre at work.

The men and women who wear the uniform of the United States put their lives on the line to protect and preserve our freedom. Were forever grateful to them for their service and sacrifice. Passing the NDAA each year is one way for us to make sure they and their families are taken care of and have all the resources they need as they serve our nation.

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Strengthening our armed forces - The Highland County Press

They deserve more than police budgets have to offer. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

In the wake of George Floyds murder by torture, tens of thousands have taken to the streets of Americas cities to demand a radical remaking of law enforcement in their country.

The leaders of this movement have rejected mere reforms to police training or disciplinary procedures as inadequate to the scale of injustice. Rather, they contend that our nations approach to crime deterrence must be reimagined, and its budgets rebalanced. In many cities, police departments command more municipal resources than health care, housing, youth programs, and workforce development combined even as those police departments post abysmal homicide clearance rates, usher teenagers into the carceral system for minor offenses, and routinely violate nonwhite residents civil rights.

Protesters deem this state of affairs unacceptable. They want their government to foster public safety in disadvantaged communities. But they do not want it to subject nonwhite people to routine harassment and violence by armed agents of the state, nor to funnel them into a cruel and unusual prison system. Therefore, racial-justice advocates have called for transferring resources from the police to alternative forms of community-based violence prevention and conflict mediation, as well as to social programs that address the root causes of crime. They have summarized this vision with the slogan defund the police.

This movements accomplishments are already considerable. And its aims are just and reasonable. Americas mode of law enforcement is more punitive, violent, and democratically unaccountable than that of any other advanced democracy, while our social spending is aberrantly stingy. Bringing justice and peace to disadvantaged communities throughout our country will undoubtedly require much more than police reform.

But doing so will also require more than cutting police budgets.

The activists and community organizers whove rallied behind defund the police are engaged in discrete struggles over fiscal priorities across a wide range of cities. As such, their focus on contesting police departments outsize share of municipal budgets is appropriate. But the fight must not end there. We cannot provide disadvantaged communities with the social resources they deserve nor, in all likelihood, the social resources necessary for guaranteeing their safety in the absence of conventional policing merely by reallocating existing public funds. Rather, doing so will require massively increasing overall public spending on these communities. If the end result of the present agitation is to reduce funding for police services, without increasing overall social investment, then we will have made little progress towards becoming a nation whose policies affirm the value of black lives.

And in the present context of widespread fiscal crisis, this outcome is more than possible. For these reasons, massive federal relief for cities today, and durable investments in social welfare and public employment tomorrow, must be understood as racial-justice issues. To defund the police, we must refund the social state.

Every year, the United States spends roughly $220 billion on punishing its people. Police forces account for around $115 billion of that sum; the rest goes to maintaining the planets most populous prison system. No state in world history has ever directed so much wealth toward arresting and caging its residents.

And yet, if the U.S. shuttered all of its police departments and penitentiaries tomorrow, the resulting savings wouldnt be nearly enough to provide all Americans with the kind of social welfare state that their counterparts in Western Europe enjoy nor the one that the leadership of the civil-rights movement thought necessary for securing the safety and social equality of black communities.

The movement to defund the police has yet to produce a comprehensive, national blueprint for using social investments to liberate nonwhite communities from their present reliance on law enforcement. But in 1967, Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, and Bayard Rustin drew up an agenda for realizing similar aspirations. In A Freedom Budget for All Americans, the civil-rights leaders laid out a vision for fortifying black Americans (nominal) legal equality by undergirding it with a set of universal economic rights. The budget called for guaranteeing jobs and decent and adequate wages to all who are willing and able to work; a decent living standard to those who cannot or should not work; decent medical care and adequate educational opportunities for all Americans; decent homes for all Americans; and environmentally sound development for the nation as a whole, among other things. (Scholars and activists affiliated with Black Lives Matter have voiced similar demands.)

In the Freedom Budgets executive summary, Randolph and Rustin explicitly framed their economic agenda as a nonpunitive means of crime deterrence, writing, The breeding grounds of crime and discontent will be diminished in the same way that draining a swamp cuts down the breeding of mosquitoes.

At the time, the budgets authors estimated that realizing these aims would cost about $1.5 trillion over a decade in todays money. But for a variety of reasons such as explosive inflation in the costs of health care, housing, and higher education over the past half-century this appears to be a profound underestimate.

In 2018, the Center for American Progress (CAP) released a proposal for a narrowly targeted version of the federal jobs guarantee that King sought. The plans modest aim was to bring the percentage of prime-aged, non-college-educated Americans with jobs back up to the 79 percent level it hit in the year 2000. Before the onset of the coronavirus recession, this would have required providing about 4.4 million unemployed Americans with federal jobs; if each job paid the decent wage of $15 an hour, the total cost of the program would be about $158 billion a year (in the present context of mass unemployment, meeting CAPs standard would require creating public jobs for a much larger number of Americans at a much greater fiscal cost).

Bernie Sanderss proposal for guaranteeing everyone in the U.S. affordable health care through a single-payer system has a projected annual price tag of $3.2 trillion. Optimistic estimates suggest that the U.S. government could eradicate homelessness for $20 billion a year (providing high-quality social housing for all who want it, meanwhile, might require $250 billion per annum). Joe Bidens proposal for making higher education affordable for all Americans is pegged at $75 billion per year.

One can debate whether these exact plans are the best modern analogues of the Freedom Budgets demands. But it is clear that liquidating every police department in the United States would not yield enough public funds to execute Kings vision for preventing crime through social investment. Putting Medicare for All to one side and ignoring the exorbitant cost of shielding poor communities from the ravages of environmental degradation in an age of climate change merely ending homelessness, providing a (limited, means-tested) job guarantee, and implementing a (limited, means-tested) plan for college affordability adds up to $253 billion, more than twice what America spends on cops.

To be sure, the notion that all public spending must be offset by new revenue or onerous debt is a superstition at the federal level. But at the municipal level it is not. New York City cannot print its own currency. To dramatically increase social spending at the city level, where police budgets are set, would require either drastically increasing taxation or federal aid. Regardless, simply reallocating law enforcement spending wont get us where King, Randolph, and Rustin wanted us to go.

Americas exceptionally punitive penal system and its exceptionally low levels of social provision are not unrelated phenomena. As the University of Chicago historian John Clegg and Harvard sociologist Adaner Usmani wrote in Catalyst Journal last year, mass incarceration in the U.S. was born out of mass economic exclusion and fiscal austerity.

Many prominent accounts of mass incarceration describe it as a system of race-based social control; which is to say, as a means of upholding white supremacy in an era when direct racial exclusion had become constitutionally verboten. And there is no doubt that anti-black animus saturates law and order politics in the U.S., nor that the criminal-justice system serves as a mechanism of black disenfranchisement in many parts of this country.

But as Clegg and Usmani persuasively argue, the origins of intensive policing and mass incarceration in the U.S. are more complex, and economics-based, than some popular narratives suggest. If Americas bloated carceral state were primarily a tool for maintaining a racial caste system, then one would expect its growth to correspond with growing racial disparities in rates of incarceration. But this is not the case. Although African-Americans are far more likely to be incarcerated than whites, the disparity between the two populations rates of imprisonment did not increase dramatically following Richard Nixons election in 1968, and has been in decline since 1990.

By contrast, class-based disparities in institutionalization exploded over the last half-century.

Aggressive policing and mass incarceration exacerbate racial inequity and devastate black communities. But the primary function of Americas extraordinarily punitive penal system isnt to uphold white supremacy. Rather, as the high salience of educational attainment in likelihood of imprisonment indicates, mass incarcerations core function is to address the criminological symptoms that derive from material deprivation and social exclusion.

And in the 1960s, black urban communities were condemned to such deprivation and exclusion en masse. As Clegg and Usmani write:

In 1910, almost half of working-age black men in America were employed in the agricultural sector. In 1960, less than 8 percent were. Despite some decades of robust job growth, urban labor markets never replaced these lost jobs. The problem only worsened as the flow of [rural black] migrants increased, and urban economies began to change. Thus, while the first wave of migrants (during WWI and the 1920s) had largely been absorbed into industrial jobs, the second wave was invariably less likely to find work. Moreover, due to the segregated nature of urban labor markets, employment opportunities for the children of first-wave migrants were undermined by competition from the second wave.

Underlying the declining fortunes of rural migrants was a transformation in urban labor markets that was particularly consequential for unskilled men. In key areas like Detroit, deindustrialization began as early as the 1950s, as industry relocated first to the suburbs and then to the Sunbelt. The loss of key manufacturing jobs was exacerbated by automation and rising foreign competition As the urban economy changed, the social prospects for those who remained in the cities plummeted further When [white] homeowners left the city, they took their tax dollars with them. The loss of revenue starved city-level social services, including education, public housing, and policing The result was a vicious spiral: as cities hemorrhaged tax revenues, overcrowded schools lost funding, the housing stock deteriorated, and crime rose, the pressure to leave mounted. But the poor (disproportionately black) could not leave. They had no collateral and poor credit, and their access to the suburbs was further limited by zoning restrictions, minimum lot-sizes, and a deliberate lack of public transport. They remained trapped in central cities that were being abandoned by both capital and the state, locked out of the consumption boom enjoyed by the rest of the country.

The inner cities economic dispossession coincided with a surge in the share of young men in the U.S. population, as the baby boom generation entered early adulthood. Since young men are the primary perpetrators of crime, demographic change alone was likely to bring an uptick in violence to the U.S. beginning in the 1960s. Clegg and Usmani contend that when the incendiary material deprivation of black urban communities combined with this demographic tinder, an inevitable fire turned into a historic conflagration. Locked out of legitimate forms of income generation, young black men were pushed into illicit trades regulated by violence. The gutting of local budgets reduced the prevalence of police while the racist brutality of law enforcement dampened cooperation with homicide investigators thereby reducing the downside risks of criminal enterprise. Meanwhile, the collapse of employment and public investment undermined communal cohesion, and thus, informal social controls on aggression. As a result, Americas homicide rate doubled between 1960 and 1980. (To be sure, there is no firm sociological consensus about the origins of the crime boom. And its likely that factors beyond those that Clegg and Usmani cite contributed to the phenomenon; it seems doubtful that demographics alone can explain why crime began falling so rapidly in the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, the causal relationships they posit between various forms of economic disadvantage and the prevalence of crime all have significant empirical support.)

As concentrated poverty curdled into criminal violence, an organic, cross-racial demand for more policing and incarceration arose. As the Freedom Budget suggests, black communities also wanted nonpunitive solutions to the epidemic of violent crime that afflicted them. For a little while, through Lyndon Johnsons Great Society program, they received such solutions in partial form.

But putting police officers on street corners and violent criminals in prison is a lot cheaper than guaranteeing quality employment and decent living standards to all. And progressive forces in the United States ultimately failed to make the Freedom Budget a reality. The causes of this failure were myriad, but the fact that white supremacy led many white workers to reject cross-racial alliances and oppose universal social provision was surely a leading one.

Americas fledgling social democracy exited stage right. Over-policing and mass incarceration entered to fill the void.

This history highlights the fact that Americas exceptionally punitive criminal-justice system is a (loathsome) remedy for a genuine social problem. Intensive policing in black communities does not exist to reproduce white supremacy; it exists because white supremacy condemned wide swathes of the black public to economic dispossession, and then blocked the path to more humane means of combating the violence that dispossession fostered. The fact that African-Americans are disproportionately likely to live in neighborhoods with high homicide rates is itself an index of racial oppression. Thus, if our aim is to affirm the value of black lives, then we must be as concerned with redressing the injustice of concentrated criminal violence as we are with combating the obscenity of racist police killings.

And there is reason to fear that in the absence of much higher investments in community-based gun violence prevention, conflict mediation, mental health, public employment, job training, health care, education, and other vital social services, cutting police budgets could result in more African-Americans losing their lives to homicide.

It is true that American police departments are exceptionally bad at solving crimes. About 40 percent of murders in the U.S. go unpunished. And in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of major cities, that percentage is far higher. But this does not mean that the police are completely ineffective in reducing the prevalence of violent crime in nonwhite communities. Although our cops are poor at investigating murders, they are often competent at sitting in parked cars or standing on street corners. And criminological research suggests that the mere passive presence of police in a given jurisdiction deters violent crime. For this reason, higher police staffing levels tend to correlate with lower rates of criminal victimization. (Notably, there is no evidence that the extraordinary punitiveness of Americas criminal-justice system has any deterrent effect. People do not consult sentencing guidelines before deciding whether to commit a crime, but they do tend to look around for cops.)

This empirical literature is buttressed by recent developments in the cities of Chicago, Baltimore, and Camden. On Sunday, May 31, Chicago suffered its most violent day in six decades: As police busied themselves with protesters, 18 people were murdered. Local reverend Michael Pfleger suggested that the explosion of violence was a direct consequence of the reduction in police presence, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, Hey, theres no police anywhere, police aint doing nothing.

Baltimores police department ostensibly orchestrated a work slowdown in2015, following the indictment of some of its members in the Freddie Gray case. A surge in homicides ensued, with the citys per capita murder rate hitting its highest level on record in 2017.

Camden, meanwhile, disbanded its police department seven years ago, and proceeded to see a 42 percent reduction in violent crimes. But this is not the proof of concept for cheap-and-easy police abolition that some have made out to be. For Camden, dissolving the police department was a means of busting its union, and creating a less cost-intensive, but larger, police force. In per capita terms, Camden is now one of the most heavily policed cities in the U.S.

This correlation between more cops and fewer violent crimes is not lost on many of those most exposed to the dual oppressions of police brutality and high homicide rates. In a 2018 Vox/Civis poll, African-Americans supported a proposal for increasing police budgets and hiring more police officers in high crime areas by a margin of 60 to 18 percent.

Graphic: Civis Poll for Vox

None of this means that there arent more effective means of deterring crime than the police. And it certainly does not mean that the odious side effects of American policing are remotely acceptable. Black communities should not have to choose between having their young people harassed, beaten, arrested for trivial offenses, bilked for fines, and occasionally murdered by police officers, or having their children killed in greater numbers by their peers.

But the fact that homicide rates tend to go up when police presence declines does mean that there is little reason to believe defunding law enforcement will preserve black lives, if such a measure is not accompanied by substantial increases in other forms of crime prevention and social investment.

When Randolph and Rustin asserted that passing the Freedom Budget would diminish crime in the same way that draining a swamp cuts down the breeding of mosquitoes, they were describing an intuition, not the conclusion of a study.

But today, the peer-reviewed journals have caught up with our civil-rights visionaries. In a 2017 review of criminological literature, researchers from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania found that increases in policing manpower reduced crime but increases in wages and job opportunities did, too. A 2016 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers similarly concluded that a 10 percent increase in wages for non-college educated men results in approximately a 10 to 20 percent reduction in crime rates.

If we provide disadvantaged areas with the employment opportunities, economic development, housing, and social welfare services that they deserve, while developing community-based institutions of crime deterrence, we can plausibly render policing as weve known it obsolete.

By contrast, if we make modest cuts to police budgets and use the freed-up funds to make recession-induced cuts to municipal social services only slightly smaller than they otherwise would have been we may well condemn more black Americans to violent deaths. As of this writing, we are heading toward the latter outcome. This week in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he would cut some funding for the NYPD, and redirect it to social services which will, nevertheless, see a potentially multibillion-dollar overall budget cut.

If we stipulate that there is no alternative to implementing draconian, economically irrational austerity in the middle of recession, then the diversion of a sliver of NYPD funds to youth services and conflict mediation is a win. But there is no reason to make that stipulation; not when the protestors in our streets have Republicans shaking in their jackboots. Few objectives are more integral to advancing racial justice, or laying the groundwork for a world beyond policing, than defeating fiscal austerity. To win that fight, we must make our calls for new spending on social nourishment as loud as our demands for defunding collective punishment.

The one story you shouldn't miss today, selected byNew York's editors.

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Defunding the Police Is Not Nearly Enough - New York Magazine

The movement that began with demonstrators protesting the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other black people killed by police is starting to shape a policy debate over the future of law enforcement. There are leaders calling for reforms, advocates calling to "defund the police," and others wanting more discussion on the issue.

After four Minneapolis police officers were charged with the death of George Floyd,a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis city council pledged todismantleits police force and come up with a new system of community safety.The call to "defund the police" might be a new concept to some, but has been the focal point to many activists for years.

Arianna Nasan is part of the community collective known as MPD 150 in Minneapolis. Nasan says defunding the police is taking money out of police departments and making communities safe by rethinking how those public funds are spent.

"The point of that is to have that money go back into our communities. We have an unbelievably inflated police budget, most major cities do. And we have severely underfunded schools and we have a major housing crisis," Nasan says.

MPD 150 eventually wants to see the Minneapolis police department to completely go away, replaced by a new system with crisis-trained professionals taking that place.

But Nasan says the call to defund the police can take different forms and can look different in any given community.

In Ohio,Mia Santiagos group Columbus Freedom Coalition has multiple prongs for changing communities, which includesabolishing prisons anddefunding the police.

"The more funding they have, the more militarized they become. The more weapons they buy. The more cops they hire despite the fact that it shows that having more cops is not helpful to communities. So defunding means decreasing their size and decreasing their reach," Santiago says.

While Santiago's group wants to completely defund the police, there are other demonstrators who believe police can still play a role, while more money is diverted to other programs.

Columbus City Councilmember Shayla Favor says what Minneapolis leaders are moving toward is the decision for that city, but says she wants Columbus to consider other options.

"What I am calling for is an openness to put things on the table that we thought were not even possible two or three weeks ago. I think everything is possible at this point. I just don't know what that looks like, I'm open to having those hard conversations with our police as well as with our residents to figure out what that looks like," Favor says.

Republican state leaders have used much stronger language is shutting down any notion of defunding the police,includingGov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio),who calledthe idea "absurd."

"They protect our lives and if somethinghappens we want to be able to call the police. It doesn't mean we don't make changes, doesn't mean we don't do reforms, we constantly have to work on this. There are real problems out there and these are things we need to work on," says DeWine.

This can be where the tension lies between community advocates and government officials; defunding versus reform.

Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Dayton), a former Montgomery County sheriff, rolled out a 15-point plan to reform the law enforcement system. He says reforms need to be made to protect good officers from the bad ones.

"Any chatter of defunding our police departments is just nonsense. We're not even going down that path, we're gonna support of our officers, we're going to hopefully, properly fund them and train them properly. We need good police officers," says Plummer.

Santiago says theColumbus Freedom Coalition is for abolition, not reform. Santiago wants to pushback against a misconception that defunding police will make communities more dangerous.

"They would be replaced by actually helpful resources. Like community outreach and crisis trained intervention, and housing, and health care. It's kind of an overarching thing because without the material conditions that make life so hard for people, we won't need the police," Santiago says. "A lot of the issues that police are called for are issues of survival and if we provided survival to every person in the country as many other countries do I don't think we'd be leaning so heavily on the police."

The city of Columbus plans to spend $359 million on its police department this year. A budget forecast from the Cleveland's mayor showed the city spending $218 million for police in 2020. And in Cincinnati, the city's police budget for the current fiscal year was $151 million.

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Advocates Push To "Defund The Police" While Officials Call For Reforms - WVXU