Category: Political
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Legislative Action Day on Feb. 29
Michael Ahern, Spare Change News BOSTON – On Wednesday, Feb. 29, the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless will be holding a Legislative Action Day. For 28 years, the coalition has been a frontrunner in fighting and preventing homelessness. According to the website, the MCH believes that homelessness can be fixed with housing that is safe…
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AFTER AUDIT, STATE PRESSED TO COVER HOMELESS STUDENT TRANSPORT COSTS
By Colleen Quinn STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE Armed with new state audit findings, several lawmakers are asking state budget writers to step in and help their communities cover the costs of busing homeless children to school – a figure that topped $11.3 million in fiscal year 2012. The group of legislators wrote a letter to…
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Free Tax Preparation Services to Help Combat Poverty
Nakia Hill Spare Change News Mitt Romney is not the only one filing his taxes this year. While the wealthy may be trying to dodge higher tax rates, low-income families are banking on collecting every penny borrowed from Uncle Sam last year. Boston and Cambridge are offering free services to the working class to assure…
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Editorial: Food stamp demagoguery
It is a callous and cynical game. Ronald Reagan showed us how it works with his mythic welfare queen from Chicago’s South Side, playing to the nation’s emotions and fueling suspicions and jealousies among voters. Today, the food stamp program is portrayed as a big government handout to a growing entitlement class. Republican presidential contender…
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Cut!
Massachusetts is preparing another grim budget for the next fiscal year that is expected to include modest “revenue enhancers” — that is, tax and/or fee hikes on the general public — and yet another round of cuts to social services. Given those two eventualities, the state’s dubious film tax credit program belongs on top of…
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Let’s Re-Imagine America
By Marc D. Goldfinger If Barack Obama stood up this election year and said, “I will not take any Wall Street money,” he could possibly win the election by a landslide. That’s just a conjecture. One of the wonderful elements about the Occupy Movement is that everyone is a leader. Right now, close to 50…
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Look Under the Hood, and Kick Some Tires
AARON JAMES Spare Change News What do you want in your president? Put political ideologies and terminology aside. Put the names of current candidates in the back of your mind. Start backward with an independent frame of mind. It is a tough question that should require some thought. I can narrow down my answer to…
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Editorial: Cut!
Massachusetts is preparing another grim budget for the next fiscal year that is expected to include modest “revenue enhancers” — that is, tax and/or fee hikes on the general public — and yet another round of cuts to social services. Given those two eventualities, the state’s dubious film tax credit program belongs on top of…
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The Origin of the Kennedy Curse
The Origin of the Kennedy Curse (EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is reprinted from Ireland’s Big Issue, one of our sister papers within the International Network of Street Papers. We thought the story is a natural for a Boston audience). By Tom Prendeville Ireland’s Big Issue We’ve all heard of the “Kennedy curse”. Is there an…
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How Haiti Earned Its Place in Black History
The first independent nation in Latin America and the first Black-led republic in the world shaped the African-American identity Jacques Fleury Spare Change News “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr. In the two years since the earthquake that devastated Haiti, a country already marred by political depravity and economic…