Ecclesio.com Conversation on Money in Politics: Buying a Seat at the Negotiating Table: Money and Trade Agreements

This week, May 18-22, Leslie Woods, Representative for Domestic Poverty and Environmental Issues in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness, is guest-hosting a conversation on money in politics on Ecclesio.com. Today's article is written by OPW Young Adult Volunteer Jenny Hyde, looking at the way corporations and private money influences international trade.

The United States is currently in the midst of negotiating two major trade deals. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would seek to build new bridges with Asia-Pacific economies, and an E.U.-U.S. agreement, commonly known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would expand the U.S.’ trading relationship with Europe. The Obama Administration has publicly announced its hope to secure both deals before elections in 2016.

Together, the TPP and TTIP stand to affect a massive portion of the global economy. The TPP alone is predicted to impact approximately 46 percent of the global GDP.  While the White House has hailed the TPP as being the “most progressive trade agreement in history” – one intrinsic element is certainly not progressive: the pervasive influence of money at the negotiating table.

When trade agreements are put into effect, they have a direct impact on the livelihood of individuals residing inside trading nations. As an economic mechanism, trade can be used to grow and expand economies around the world.  Over the years, however, trade agreements have grown from simply covering tariffs, to rewriting the rules for environmental, health, and labor regulations. Therefore, it is fundamentally important that potential trade agreements reflect the interests of a state, and its economic sector. In order to synthesize the construction of trade agreements in the U.S., advisory committees meet to determine what terms of trade would best suit public welfare. These committees report to Administration officials who then proceed in international negotiations.

According to a noteworthy piece published by the Washington Post, of the 566 members on advisory committees, private industry and trade groups make up a combined 85 percent of voices at the table. The other 15 percent of voices represent small clusters of academics, labor groups, government agents and NGOs. The balance between civil society groups, and the interests of private corporations is seemingly non-existent in this make-up.

Moreover, the TPP has received a great amount of criticism for its lack of transparency. While the 566 advisory committee members receive access to the text, the public at large is kept out of the loop. What little knowledge that has been released on the agreement is the result of WikiLeaks, despite a multitude of requests from politicians and civil society groups demanding otherwise. Several years of negotiations later, the TPP still remains under a veil of secrecy.

What can be witnessed through the TPP, however, is an evolution of society’s understanding of trade. As the private sector has managed to gain greater access to government decision making processes, trade has gone from being viewed as a public good, to a business transaction made among wealthy people and multi-national corporations. And as a result of this normative shift, we now see feedback on trade agreements from civil society groups all too often labeled as an inconvenience for decision makers.  In pursuit of streamlining the trade negotiating process, corporations have been invited to the table, while everyday folks are left out of discussions.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of many strong voices against the TPP, has questioned the validity of such secrecy in light of the trade deal’s major impending repercussions. The Senator reflects, “If the American people would be opposed to a trade agreement if they saw it, then that agreement should not become the law of the United States.” While corporations are able to protect their interests under the current system, other voices have been devalued. As we are repeatedly seeing in the U.S. today, the divide between rich and poor threatens the pursuit of equal representation in our society.

Concern over this lack of input is quite justified, as major trade deals of the past have wreacked havoc on both developed and developing economies. NAFTA and CAFTA for example, both of which contain many parallels to the TPP and TTIP, have earned reputations for their negative externalities. Jobs in the US have moved overseas, while push factors for migration have increased. The treatment of workers and the environment in developing countries have become secondary interests to the pursuit of profits, and as a result, tragic headlines have repeatedly topped news cycles. With no promise of evaluating trading partners based on their human rights records, or tangible enforcement mechanism upholding standards for livelihood in economies different from our own, current terms of trade may no longer be in the public’s best interest.

How, then, do we avoid mistakes of the past, and seek to reclaim trade as an empowering economic tool? The answer may be as simple as giving trade back to the people it impacts. The problem persists, however, that there is little incentive to change the predominant trend of neoliberal decision making. Neoliberalism, since the 1980′s, can be defined as extensive economic liberalization to enhance the role of the private sector in our the economy. Within neoliberalism, deregulation incentivizes profit-makers to further exploit both people and the earth because they have much to gain and little to lose.

A resource from Share the World states, “The crucial first step towards reclaiming democratic power is therefore to curb the influence of corporations on policy making at the local, national and global levels.” As a society, we need to reclaim our role as citizens actively invested in the impacts of trade legislation. Not only this, but we need to advocate on behalf of poor and marginalized people, both among us and overseas. The voices that are not privileged enough to be heard are often those who are the most  adversely impacted. In Washington D.C. and elsewhere, the faith community has sought to make the negotiating table open for all, and it is important that it continue to do so as the TPP and TTIP move forward.

While the task of separating money and trade is a daunting one, our faith calls us to a task greater than ourselves. In the model for community we see outlined in scripture, no one is exploited or neglected for another’s personal gain. Let it be so as we seek trade justice, and seek to reclaim trade agreements as instruments of peace, made to uphold the beauty of all of God’s creation.

A seat at the table should not be bought by power or influence, but earned because of the inherent dignity of each person on earth.

Jenny Hyde graduated from Gordon College in Massachusetts, where she received her degree in International Affairs. She hopes to pursue a career in economic development, with a particular interest in post-communist contexts.  Jenny currently serves as a Young Adult Volunteer at the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness, in Washington, DC, working primarily on issues related to trade justice.

See more at: http://www.ecclesio.com/2015/05/buying-a-seat-at-the-negotiating-table-money-and-trade-agreements-jenny-hyde/#sthash.Mvvh9evr.dpuf

More Time For Schools To Participate in Free Meal Program

USDA Extends Community Eligibility Deadline for Upcoming School Year

By Anne Fyffe

It is not too late for eligible schools in your community to notify their state agencies that they want to participate in Community Eligibility and provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students for the 2014-2015 school year!

In mid-June, USDA Food and Nutrition Service announced an extension of the deadline for local educational agencies to elect to participate in Community Eligibility from June 30, 2014 to August 31, 2014!

Take Action: Find out if your schools are eligible here! For more links, scroll down.

Community eligibility is an opportunity for schools in areas that experience high levels of poverty to provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students. A win-win for students and schools, community eligibility removes the families' and schools' burden of submitting paper applications to enroll students in school meal programs and works to ensure that all children in high-poverty communities receive two healthy meals a day, enabling them to pay better attention in class and perform better academically.

The PC(USA) is continuously a leader in the fight to end child hunger and has long recognized the "importance of federal nutrition programs as part of the path to ending hunger in our nation" (General Assembly Minutes, 1996, p.784). Community eligibility is one such program that will go a long way in providing healthy meals for children and ending hunger.

Take Action!

Here's what you can do now, before the August 31st deadline for school districts to notify their state agency that they want to participate in CEP for the 2014-2015 school year:

• Check out our original post: Community Eligibility can make a positive impact in your community by serving more meals to hungry kids.
• See if your School District is eligible: Check out the list of eligible schools in your state!
• Contact your school's Administration: If your school is eligible, contact the administrators in your school district and ask them if they plan to participate in CEP next year.
• Write an op-ed: Create some public discussion in your community around CEP by clicking here!
• Learn more about community eligibility: Utilize these CEP resources from FRAC.

J. Herbert Nelson Addresses 221st General Assembly

Remarks Given by the Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II

221^st General Assembly

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Meeting

Detroit, Michigan

June 20, 2014

Good afternoon. I am J. Herbert Nelson, Director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness in Washington, DC. Your Office of Public Witness is responsible for advocating the social justice policies approved by each General Assembly that has implications for the federal government. Presbyterians’ work in justice advocacy began with the founding of Presbyterianism in Geneva, Switzerland, by a lawyer named John Calvin who advocated for public education. Calvin believed so strongly that the Church of Jesus had a role to correct, influence and transform government that upon his death, he willed his writings to governmental leaders of Geneva, Switzerland, rather than the Smithsonian Institute of his day. He did this simple act to underscore his commitment to the belief that given the moral and ethical latitude of political leaders, their thoughts ought to be reminded of the mind of Christ in their deliberations.

A Scots Presbyterian Clergyman John Witherspoon was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only active clergyman to sign the document.

In 1963, African American Presbyterian Pastors and Women’s Rights Advocates led student and community movements across the country. We are often reminded of the role that Reverend Eugene Carson Blake, Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church played in assisting White clergy of all denominations to engage the struggle for racial and gender justice. His monumental moment was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when he stood with Dr. King in the March for Jobs and Justice, known today as the 1963 March on Washington, to declare that the White Church is late in coming to this movement, but he made it clear “we are here now.”

As Gradye Parsons suggest in his writing Presbyterians and Politics: Disturbers of Government, “So, on one hand, it would appear that those of the Reformed tradition have been defenders of the role of government, and on the other hand, disturbers of governments.” This paradoxical call places us in a significant position to love our nation while possess a willingness to make it better.

The biblical mandate for our call to justice as a denomination is found in the words of Jesus’ emancipation address when he entered the temple at the beginning of his ministry and gave voice to the power of his commitment to justice and liberty for all when he read “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” This liberating, agitating and elevating personal mission statement from the reading of Isaiah sets the tone for discipleship and provides the basis for our work in Washington, DC.

We give thanks to God for the revamping and revitalization of our Summer Fellowship and Intern Programs, where we are engaging young people in the work of justice advocacy. Four of our summer fellows have been working at this General Assembly in your committees and on the floor.  Additionally, we are excited about our partnership with the Young Adult Volunteer Program and Hunger Program that will bring one or two Young Adult Volunteers to serve in our office for the next two years. These training opportunities for young people could not be done without your gifts and financial support.

On yesterday we launched a new initiative with World Mission to educate children. I firmly believe that given our Presbyterian heritage in education, if there is PC(USA) congregation in town or on the corner no child should enter school without knowing their colors or numbers or how to spell their name! If there is PC(USA) congregation in town or on the corner no child should attend school from K – 12 and not be able to get a high school diploma! Our commitment to partnering with other entities of the Church extends to joining the Peacemaking Program and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance in an effort to eradicate Gun Violence in the United States. Presbyterian congregations across this country have screened the movie ‘Trigger’ and developed action plans to address a policy entitled Gun Violence and Gospel Values approved by the 219^th General Assembly (2010). We are training Presbyterians to go back to their local communities become change agents in the political realities they face every day. Over three hundred Presbyterians have come to Washington, DC annually for our annual Compassion, Peace and Justice Training Day and Ecumenical Advocacy Days. These persons are engaged in advocacy training with skills to return home and make a difference in their local communities through engagement with policy makers.

Friends, we face a time when our voting rights are being suppressed; a time when corporations are paying millions to CEO’s who have failed at their job, while people in our nations are working hard every day. In this country of opulence there are people working overtime and still don’t make enough to pay their bills and feed their children. We live in a nation that chooses war over peace and power over partnership. We live in a nation where leaders would rather shut down the government than make a righteous decision.

I’m so glad Jeremiah did not bow to the temple priest who locked him in the stock room. He declared that he thought about turning back during his detention. However, something within him allowed him to say, ‘I can’t turn back. What I feel inside is like a fire shut up in my bones. He continued to proclaim God’s liberty and truth. If that does not convince you, I’m so glad Isaiah called the exiles back home; I’m so glad Micah made it plain when responding to the question, What does the Lord require? He said, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God!” And Jesus demonstrates this call in his earthly life and reminds us in Matthew 25: 41-45 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'  

We cannot remain silent in these troubling times. The world needs the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to stand up and be the Church. Join me in making a difference in this sin sick world. We can do it together.  Thank you and God Bless!  

More Meals for Hungry Kids

Community Eligibility: Fighting Child Hunger and Building Stronger School Meal Programs

By Anne Fyffe

Kaylee, a nine-year-old from Texas, speaks honestly to the importance of free meals at school when she says that "when I go home, we don't have that much food...when I come here, I can eat." Kaylee is just one of nearly 32 million children who rely on free or reduced-price school meals every day at school.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has a long tradition of advocacy on behalf of children and is committed to the goal of ending childhood hunger. The PC(USA) recognizes the importance of federal nutrition programs, including school lunch and breakfast programs, as part of the path to achieving this goal (General Assembly Minutes, 1996, p.784).

Community eligibility is a new opportunity for schools in areas that experience high levels of poverty to provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students. The community eligibility provision (CEP) was previously only available in 11 states, but beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, all schools nationwide that meet the 40 percent "identified student" threshold will qualify to participate in this option. You can find a list of eligible schools here. The deadline for school districts to notify their state agency that they want to participate in CEP for the 2014-2015 school year is June 30, 2014.

Take Action: Find out if your schools are eligible here! Click here to write an op-ed to your local newspaper in support of community eligibility. For more links, scroll down.

How Community Eligibility Works

Community eligibility is a win-win for students and schools. Designed to help schools in high-poverty areas, it ensures that all children have access to healthy food at school. Community eligibility removes the families’ and schools’ burden of submitting paper applications to enroll students in school meal programs in high-poverty communities. Instead, schools are reimbursed through a formula based on the number of "identified students" who participate in additional federal benefit programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly the Food Stamp Program) or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance, among others. Typically, more than 75 percent of students who go to schools that qualify for community eligibility receive  free or reduced-price meals, so this is a great opportunity to make sure that 100 percent of children are getting the food they need to thrive.

Benefits for Children, Schools, and Communities

Community eligibility has been successful in increasing the number of students eating meals each day and in changing the way that schools provide food service, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). School districts can increase meal program participation, bring staff costs down, eliminate bad debt from unpaid student meal fees, and cut down on administrative costs associated with printing and processing paper applications.

School food service workers will no longer have to confront, and sometimes take food away from children who have unpaid fees on their accounts and administrators and families will no longer have to bear the burden of submitting paper applications. Most importantly, this program removes the stigma of receiving free meals at school and children will no longer have trouble paying attention in class because they are hungry.

Schenectady City School District, NY is one example of a school district that has successfully implemented community eligibility district-wide, making both breakfast and lunch available to all children at no charge, and as a result, they experienced growth in both their breakfast and lunch programs. They also attribute the changes in their nutrition programs to substantially improving their attendance rates. Larry Spring, superintendent of Schenectady City Schools, sees community eligibility as an opportunity to level the playing field for all students and address issues such as racial inequality and food insecurity as part of a larger city-wide equity agenda.

Take Action!

Here's what you can do now, before the June 30th deadline for school districts to notify their state agency that they want to participate in CEP for the 2014-2015 school year:

• See if your School District is eligible: Check out the list of eligible schools in your state!
• Contact your school's Administration: If your school is eligible, contact the administrators in your school district and ask them if they plan to participate in CEP next year.
• Write an op-ed: Create some public discussion in your community around CEP by clicking here!
• Learn more about community eligibility: Utilize these CEP resources from FRAC.

Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

     

      Anne Fyffe is a Summer Fellow at the Office of Public Witness. She will graduate from The Ohio State University in August with a degree in Public Affairs and hopes to begin seminary in 2015.

Unemployed Workers Need Your Help

The Senate is expected to vote today on a bill to extend Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits to the long-term unemployed.  They need 60 votes!

Write to your Members of Congress today.  Now is not the time to leave unemployed workers without help.

What is UI?

Unemployment insurance is a federal-state program that provides a financial safety net to those who have lost their jobs. Unemployment insurance is the first economic line of defense against the reality of unemployment and is intended to keep people clothed, fed, and housed while they seek new employment. 

The Issue:

On January 1, 2014, the special extension of UI for the long-term unemployed expired. This left more than 1.6 million unemployed workers and their families without benefits.  The long-term unemployed are people who have been without a job for more than six months.  They qualified for their state programs, exhausted those benefits, and now the federal extension is all they have left.

Though the unemployment rate is coming down, the measures of long-term unemployment are not improving: [i]

·      38% of the unemployed are long-term unemployed

·      the average duration of unemployment for all unemployed workers is 37.1 weeks, over 11 weeks longer than the maximum state benefit

·      3.9 million workers are long-term unemployed

The unfortunate truth is that the job market is not improving much. Most of the gains in the employment rate over the last year are due to discouraged workers leaving the work force (no longer looking for a job, and therefore, no longer counted as unemployed). People giving up on ever finding a job is NOT the way we want to see the unemployment rate come down.  We should be making sure that those who want to work are able to find good jobs that allow them to support themselves and their families.

Write to your Senators and Representative now!

What does the Church say about work and unemployment?

In 2012, the 220^th General Assembly spoke on the fundamental nature of our economic system and the way it reflects our values.  The Assembly wrote:

“We reject, as incompatible with Christian vocation, any economic system that tolerates the marginalization or exploitation of any of its members through unemployment and underemployment, insufficient wages, or extreme inequality in access to social goods.” 

The statement goes on to urge several policy proposals that would address the wide and varied root causes of economic injustice in the U.S.  On the subject of the safety net, it called for

“a stronger social safety net for poor and low-income families, through measures such as adjustment of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and related income support programs to extend time limits or reactivate expired eligibility in times of high unemployment, and protection of Food Stamps, WIC, SSI, Medicaid, and other programs for the most vulnerable, from across-the-board budget cuts.”[ii]

 

As Reformed Christians, we believe in the value and dignity of work.  We believe God calls us into vocation, which is a “lifelong response to God in all aspects of one’s life.  Work, paid and unpaid, is an integral part of the believer’s response to God’s call.”[iii] But when God’s children have no opportunity to work we have an even greater responsibility to one another. 

Write to your Members of Congress today.  Tell them to support the extension of Unemployment Insurance for the long-term unemployed.

As the Assembly wrote in 1995, “All conditions of paid employment, including compensation and working conditions, should sustain and nurture the dignity of individuals, the well-being of households and families, the social cohesiveness of communities, and the integrity of the global environment.”

Learn more about Unemployment Insurance from the United States Department of Labor. 

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[i] Tackling the Long-term Unemployment Crisis: What the President, Congress, and Business Leaders Should Do; National Unemployment Law Project (NELP); January 2014. http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2014/Issue-Brief-Tackling-Long-Term-Unemployment-Crisis.pdf

[ii] World of Hurt, Word of Life: Renewing God’s Commuion in the Work of Economic Reconstruction; 220^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2012, http://www.pcusa.org/resource/world-hurt-word-life-renewing-gods-communion-work/

[iii] Principles of Vocation and Work; Minutes, 207^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1995, pp.426-427.