Continuing Unemployment and Worse

By Fr. Fred Kammer, SJ

The stock market is soaring to set new records. CEOs are taking home bundles of cash, stock options, and rich severance packages. Wall Street is handing out million dollar bonuses again. Congress and state legislatures seem to find no tax cut unpalatable. And big tech firms like Apple acquire smaller ones like Tumblr for a billion dollars. What is the matter with this rosy picture? Unemployment.

by Fr. Fred Kammer, SJ

By Fred Kammer, SJ

Presented at St. Thomas University in Houston, TX on June 10, 2011.

State Medicaid Decisions Impact People of Color

By Fred Kammer, S.J.

An Equal Justice Initiative analysis shows how the 50^th Anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Gideon decision demonstrates ongoing problems in indigent defense.  Only 24 states have public defender systems and too often are hampered by inadequate funding and “crippling caseloads” for public defenders.  Just last year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Maples v Alabama, criticized Alabama’s failure to provide legal assistance to death row inmates, as too many must rely upon volunteers or no defense at all during the post-conviction process. 

In a new report, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development finds that predatory payday loans in 33 states cost the American economy $774 million in 2011 resulting in the loss of more than 14,000 jobs.  These costs, plus the an increase in Chapter 13 bankruptcies linked to payday usage, brought the total loss to nearly 1 billion dollars. 

The Regressive Nature of State-Local Tax Systems

By Fred Kammer, S.J.

In the news lately are calls by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and other governors to eliminate their state personal and corporate income taxes and to substitute higher sales taxes in plans that will remain “revenue neutral” (namely, no additional income, just shifting tax burdens). To assess such plans morally, one needs to look first at the current state-local tax burdens of state populations. Then we can assess the impact and morality of proposed changes.

The Alliance for Responsible Lending in Alabama (ARLA), a large coalition advocating fair lending policies, gathered on February 28 at the state house in Montgomery to urge legislators to cap payday loans at 36% and to curtail automobile title lending.
 

…and More Coming Horrors

by Fred Kammer, SJ

While major parts of the presidential campaign focused on the economy, debt, and taxes—individual and corporate—the “fiscal cliff tax deal” reached on January 2nd resolved none of them.  The new revenue raised is far from adequate to end the deficits and reduce the debt, the automatic spending cuts called “sequestration” have only been deferred for sixty days, and the inequalities of the tax code remain largely in place.  In fact, the deal simply sets up three more “fiscal cliffs” in the next quarter.

The El Paso, Texas City Council approved an ordinance to regulate payday and car title loan businesses.  El Paso is the fourth city in Texas to adopt such an ordinance after Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.  The ordinance limits payday loans to twenty percent of the borrower’s gross monthly income and auto-title loans to either 3 percent of the borrower’s gross annual income or 70 percent of the vehicle’s value.  The ordinance limits installments to four and rollovers and renewals to three.