Author: Rev. Jesse

(NNPA) — America is literally falling apart. In Flint, Michigan, children were poisoned by the lead contamination of the water. In the District of Columbia, the subway system is plagued by fires and delays. Arlington Memorial Bridge, which connects the North to the South, the Capitol to Arlington National Cemetery, may have to be closed soon. Kennedy’s eternal flame may burn forever, but the bridge is on its last legs.

The American Society of Civil Engineers released a report last week once more warning the country of a massive investment deficit— an estimated $1.4 trillion shortfall over the next ten years— coming on top of years of under funding and neglect.

This isn’t a matter of money. The Obama administration has announced it plans to spend over $1 trillion to build a new generation of nuclear weapons and the planes, missiles and submarines that deliver them. These are weapons that can never be used. We have spent over $2 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to date, with the final costs estimated at $4 to $6 trillion. The war in Afghanistan— an impoverished country where we have no strategic interest— is already the longest in our history and continuing.

We have the money. U.S. corporations stash trillions abroad to avoid paying taxes. If they paid what they owe— now estimated to be $700 billion— it would provide a down payment on rebuilding America. The federal tax on gasoline— dedicated to paying for infrastructure— has not been raised since 1993, even though gas prices have plummeted.

Interest rates on U.S. bonds are now so low that the Treasury could issue Rebuild America bonds and put people to work to rebuild the country— and the growth and increased productivity that results would generate revenues to repay the bonds. Even establishment economists like Lawrence Summers argue that the program would literally pay for itself. And it would respond to the pleas of the bastion of economic conservatism— the International Monetary Fund— that is pleading with the U.S. and other advanced countries to expand public investment to forestall a return to recession. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the U.S. will suffer a stunning $4 trillion in lost GDP by 2025 from the costs of decaying tunnels, railways, waterways and other basic infrastructure. It will cost us more to decay than it would to rebuild.

However, Washington is frozen. The Republican Congress rejects President Obama’s modest plans for infrastructure investment, though they are supported by a massive coalition that includes the conservative Chamber of Commerce as well as the AFL-CIO. All three presidential candidates call for expanding investment in infrastructure (although only Bernie Sanders comes close to meeting the shortfall that the civil engineers warn about). But it will require a wave election— a sweeping rebuke to the obstructionist Republican Congress— for anything to happen.

This is how great nations decline. Investments that are essential to any modern civilized nations— from schools and bridges to electric grids and clean water systems— are neglected. Money is squandered on foreign adventures or lost to the tax evasions of corporations and the rich. Private speculators profit from privatizing public services. We build the most modern and powerful military in the world but are ever more crippled by decaying services that we depend on every day.

Politics as usual won’t change this. It will change only if people rise up and hold their politicians accountable. How many bridges must collapse or children must be poisoned or businesses must be shuttered before that happens?

Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is one of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) — In Alabama, 50 years after Selma, voting rights are once more under assault. Even as Alabama finally took down its confederate flags this year, it has raised new obstacles to voting.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder to gut the Voting Rights Act, supported by the five conservative justices alone, opened the floodgates to legislation in over 21 states erecting new obstacles to make voting more difficult. These have included limiting the days for early voting, eliminating Sunday voting, requiring various forms of ID, shutting down voting sites and more. Alabama— the home of Selma and the Bloody Sunday police riot that spurred the passage of the original Voting Rights Act 50 years ago— is one of the leaders in the new forms of voter suppression.

Alabama passed a bill, requiring for the first time, a photo ID to vote, affecting African Americans, the poor, the young and the old disproportionately. Now, Alabama is using a budget squeeze to shut down 31 satellite offices that issue driver’s licenses, the most popular form of voter ID. This new Jim Crow isn’t subtle.

Al.com columnist John Archibald reported that eight of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of nonwhite registered voters saw their driver’s license offices closed. “Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed,” Archibald wrote, “Every one.” First the state demands that you get a photo ID, and then it makes it harder to do so, particularly in areas heavily populated by African Americans. Not surprisingly, civil rights activists are asking the Justice Department to intervene.

Rep. Terri A. Sewell, who represents Selma and is the only Democratic member of the Alabama congressional delegation, called the restrictions “eerily reminiscent of past, discriminatory practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests that restricted the black vote.” State officials claim that other ways of obtaining photo identification is available for voters. However this is Alabama, infamous for its segregationist history, for its rejectionist Governor George Wallace, for bloody Sunday in Selma, for the murder of four little girls in the bombing of the Birmingham church. Under the original Voting Rights Act, Alabama’s measures would have required pre-clearance from the Justice Department.

With the bipartisan leadership of Rep. John Conyers, Sen. Pat Leahy, and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a bill to resuscitate the Voting Rights Act is now pending in Congress, although it has yet to get a vote. It revives pre-clearance measures, applying them to states with five violations of federal law to their voting changes over the past 15 years. While the old law applied to nine Southern States and parts of several others, this standard would apply only to Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Yes, Alabama would still be exempt from pre-clearance as would other states with an extensive history of voting discrimination such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Virginia.

The right to vote is fundamental to any Republic. Voting should be facilitated, not obstructed. We should register citizens automatically. Early voting should be extended and easy. Voting day should be a holiday, so workers have time to cast their votes. American voting rates are scandalously low, largely because we make registration and voting so difficult.

It is particularly outrageous that 50 years after Selma, when the country celebrates the courage of the civil rights marchers, we still witness efforts to suppress the vote, skewed to discriminate against minorities. Alabama’s actions demand a Justice Department investigation— and that demand should be met immediately!