Change Corps

The campaign and election of Barack Obama as our next President has inspired people all over the world.

A new generation of community organizers has stepped forward with a new spirit of determination in making change a reality where they live.

During the election I was honored to help start the Obama Volunteer Corps in Houston. Now that the election has been won, OVC has transitioned in Change Corps.

We are still determined to work for causes that need attention and can serve the communities where we live.

Change Corps began in Houston, Texas, but already we have individuals starting their own chapters in Louisiana and Virginia.

I’ve been devoting the bulk of my time to working with Change Corps, hence the reason this blog is so often not updated. So, for news about events happening around Houston and things you can do from home, check out the Change Corps website at www.changecorps.org.

Propostion 8 and the Lesson of Electing Barack Obama President

I celebrated the victory of President-elect Barack Obama, and later in the evening what should have been a tremendous day of celebration was marred by the passing of Proposition 8 in California – banning same-sex marriage after the California Supreme Court had declared the marriages to be legal.

Whether or not you personally believe that gay-marriage is “appropriate” I hope that you can understand how wrong it is to take a right away from someone.

It wasn’t long ago in our country that inter-racial marriage was illegal in some states. Today, that seems absurd, especially considering that our next President of the United States is the product of a bi-racial couple.

With such a tremendous stride toward progress in the election of Barack Obama, I somehow thought that mainstream Americans were beginning to understand how wrong discrimination was. Unfortunately in California, Florida, Arkansas we were shown that the majority of Americans are still perfectly comfortable writing discrimination into state Constitutions and reducing certain groups to the status of second-class citizens.

I try to find a way to accurately communicate to people what it’s like to be discriminated against for something you truly have no control over. African-Americans understand what this is, but sadly many African-American churches were pushing their congregations to vote Yes on Prop 8 and push the ban. I find that to be the hardest thing to understand.

People want to argue that marriage has been between a man and a woman since the beginning of time.

This argument is completely flawed for a variety of reasons. For starters, humans haven’t existed since the beginning of time. More importantly, modern Christianity hasn’t existed since the beginning of time. On top of that, let’s explore how long humans existed without having moral concepts and social structures like marriage.

Marriages were once arranged, wherein people were forced to marry those they had never met before.

Marriages were once used as a means by which to consolidate political alliances.

Society has moved past both of these uses for marriage, so you cannot argue that marriage has always been the same.

The main argument appears to be that these people who want this discrimination are saying that gay marriage will destroy the sacred union of marriage. They don’t talk about all of the cheating that takes places in heterosexual marriages. They don’t talk about the soaring divorce rates in traditional marriages.

So I have a proposal.

These proposed amendments to state Constitutions are used as weapons against pro-equality individuals in the name of marriage’s defense.

I think pro-equality organizations should therefore start finding ways to propose new amendments as well. I don’t think we need to propose amendments about marriage equality or to fight discrimination, I think we need to take the position of defending the sacred institute of marriage.

So I believe we should propose a proposition to California’s state Constitution, hell to all state Constitutions, outlawing divorce.

I think it should be illegal for heterosexual couples to divorce. Marriage is, afterall, a sacred union and not to be entered into lightly. We should do everything in our power to protect marriage, afterall isn’t that what these “Yes to Prop 8″ defenders were promoting?

So we need to stop divorce if we’re really interested in protecting marriage. This includes revoking division of property and assets that would normally take place upon a married couple divorcing. It also includes revoking the concepts of joint custody of children, because ultimately we need to make sure that children grow up in traditional households consisting of a mother and a father.

I understand that marriages sometimes fall apart, that people fall in and out of love with one another, that violence can sometimes ensue behind closed doors in troubled marriages. And yes there will be consequences. I’m sure domestic violence will increase against women. And, yes, it will probably also increase toward children. And those children will grow up scarred and probably continue the cycle of violence in their own future relationships – but these are obviously sacrifices that are required if we’re to protect marriage in its sacred form.

What? Do you think this sounds completely absurd?

Yes, well, I’m sure that all of those “Yes to Prop 8″ supporters would agree with you. Afterall, it doesn’t make sense to take rights away from people – right?

Yeah.

Something tells me a proposition that would ACTUALLY protect marriage wouldn’t fly.

But despite this set-back in the quest for equality for all people, I can at least look to our new President and know that when our country does make up its mind to take steps toward progress, we do it with style and we do it dramatically.

And that’s one of the lessons I’ve learned from the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States – progress is attainable.

Yes We Did.

Yesterday I took the day off of work to help with the Obama campaign’s final push to the polls.

Working with an office filled with volunteers I made phone calls to Virginia and Iowa and New Mexico. I was completely paranoid all day yesterday. While I called voter after voter I was determined the avoid any news and just stay focused on trying to touch as many voters as possible.

People filtered into the office all day long, some looking for signs, T-shirts and buttons – just wanting to walk away from the day with a small piece of this campaign that meant so much to them.

More than that, I watched volunteers people coming in with their lunch hour off, just there with a cell phone and the drive to help, making phone calls and skipping lunch. It was an amazing day.

The volunteers were energized, calling at a feverish pace and the room that they filled was nearly overwhelmed with the chatter of their voices. As the day labored on, I noticed the chatter was slowly getting more and more quiet as exhaustion began to set-in. Afterall, these people had been their since early morning, with nothing but water, donuts and snack foods to keep them going and they were bound to get tired.

About an hour before the polls closed in Virginia, one of the Obama organizers, the amazing Chella, came in with call sheets to Virginia. “Polls close in Virginia in an hour, we need to get through all of these names before that happens!” She declared.

I watched the room suddenly become reenergized with the chants of “Fired UP! Ready to go!”

And the chatter returned to its early morning volume.

More than 15,000 phone calls were made that day from that location.

That evening I was at the Election watch party and I ran into 2 volunteers who had been phone-banking with me throughout the day. These ladies were total troopers and made phone calls outside even when the temperature and humidity made it uncomfortable to do so.

I told them, “Aren’t you glad you stayed and made those phone calls to Virginia now?”

They both declared how much fun they had making the calls and how they were so happy to have taken the time to do it.

It was at that point that the giant screen displaying CNN election results came out with a projection.

Barack Obama had won Virginia.

The state we had rushed to finish calling during the day.

We all cheered.

A minute passed and CNN released “Breaking News” – Barack Obama had won the Presidency.

It was absolutely amazing. I watched the faces of these women shift and they looked at me as if to say, “We helped do that??”

After a round of hugs I came to realize how much this election, this campaign was about ordinary people doing something that they had never done before – taking stake in the politics of their future.

Today, I hear the media saying “President-Elect Obama” and there’s a part of me that can hardly believe it’s true. Like many people I wonder what comes next, how will I fill my days and weekends without this amazing campaign to donate my time and efforts to?

I have no doubt that President-Elect Obama will use this amazing grassroots network that he has built to help ignite change in communities across this country of ours and I look forward to helping make more change here at home and for Americans everywhere.

This is a brave new day and the possibilities that lie ahead of us are endless.

Take heart and enjoy this day because we all have a stake in it and it’s up to us to make certain what comes next is as powerful as this campaign for change has been.

Plumber Joe’s Taxes

Plumber Joe’s taxes
McCain has entrepreneurs spooked about tax hikes, but fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama’s plan.
By Stacy Cowley

In speech after speech, presidential candidate John McCain hammers on the claim that his rival Barack Obama will raise taxes on many small businesses.

At the debate on Wednesday night, McCain said, “The small businesses that we’re talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now.”

More typically he has said: “What [Obama] hasn’t told you is that he would tax half of the income of small businesses in America,” a line used in La Crosse, Wisc., last week.

Should small business owners fear for their wallets if Obama is elected? Not the vast majority, business and tax experts say.

To make its claim, according to a McCain spokesman, the campaign counts as a small-business owner any taxpayer who files a Schedule C, E or F – the forms used to report gains and losses from business ventures and farms.

Using that definition and citing IRS data, the campaign notes that “56.8% of total small business income is earned by businesses in the top two rates, which Barack Obama has pledged to raise.”

It’s true that Obama has proposed raising taxes on the top two income rates.

But there are three main problems with McCain’s charge.

What is a small business?
First, it relies on a broad definition of what counts as a small business, including everyone who files a Schedule C, E and F.

But most people who file those forms don’t run a business for a living: Those forms are also used to report income from freelance and consulting work, real-estate rentals, and most other non-salary sources.

For example, McCain and Obama both file Schedule C returns, thanks to their book royalties – but they hardly should be considered small business owners.

In 2005, there were 21.5 million Schedule C returns filed, according to the IRS.

A more realistic definition of small businesses turns up far fewer firms. The Small Business Administration estimates that there were 6 million small businesses in 2005, as measured by those with fewer than 500 employees and with staff on the payroll other than the owner.

Who pays?
Second, even using the broad definition of small business that McCain likes, very few owners would see their own taxes rise.

That’s because the lion’s share of taxable income comes from a small number of wealthy businesses. Out of 34.7 million filers with business income on Schedules C, E or F, 479,000 filers fall into the top two brackets, according to an analysis of projected 2009 filings by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

The other 34.3 million – or 98.6% – would be unaffected by Obama’s proposed rate hike.

That includes Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, whom McCain invoked nearly two dozen times at the debate Wednesday night to illustrate the plight of the average worker and small business owner.

“Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years … he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes,” McCain said.

In an interview afterward with WTOL, Wurzelbacher acknowledged that he’d still like to eventually buy the plumbing company he works for but that he wouldn’t yet be hit by higher taxes.

“I want to set the record straight: Currently I would not fall into Barack Obama’s $250,000-plus,” he said. “But if I’m lucky in business and taxes don’t go up then maybe I can grow the business and be in that tax bracket – well, let me rephrase it. Hopefully, that tax won’t be there.”

Few owners are that lucky in business. In a member survey conducted late last year, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that only 14% of respondents said they had $200,000 or more in annual income.

As Tax Policy Center fellow Len Berman recently told Fortune Small Business: “Most owners of small businesses have small incomes.”

What gets taxed?
Third, even if you’re one of the rare business owners making enough money to be affected by Obama’s proposed tax increases, you still won’t see a big hike in your tax bill.

McCain’s claim that Obama “will increase taxes on 50% of small business revenue” – the line he used in the second presidential debate – is incorrect because of how income is taxed.

If a business owner falls into the top bracket, that doesn’t mean that all of his or her income is taxed at the highest level.

For example: If a small-business owner makes $210,000 in taxable income, he edges into the 33% bracket, one of the two top tax rates that Obama would like to raise.

But he would pay the higher tax only on the amount that exceeds the cutoff – in 2007, the two top tax rates applied to single filers with income of $160,850 or more and joint filers with income of at least $195,850. As a single filer, this business owner would see his federal taxes increase $1,475 under Obama’s plan, which calls for raising the 33% tax rate to 36%.

“While Obama does favor raising the top two rates, the quote is not true because not all the small business income of those in the top two rates is taxed at the 33% and 35% rates,” said Gerald Prante, a senior economist at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

The bottom line: McCain’s claim only works by using an overly broad definition of what counts as a “small business” – and even with that definition, fewer than 2% of business owners would be hit by Obama’s proposed rate increase. For those who are affected, the increase would be levied only on a part of their earnings, not all of them.

CNNMoney.com writer Emily Maltby contributed to this report.

It only takes one time to regret it forever…

Something for fun.

A little light-hearted humor.

Seriously, just do it.

I think this video says it pretty well.

John McCain even lies to his celebrity friends.

Senator McCain was scheduled to be on “The Late Show: with David Letterman” this evening; however, he cancelled his appearance because, according to his campaign, he had to immediately fly to Washington in order to deal with the economic crisis.

The Senator himself placed a phone call to host David Letterman telling him that he would have to cancel his appearance at the last minute because of his sudden need to help set the wayward economy back on course. Of course, John McCain has had many chances to take part in the work done by the Senate – too bad he’s missed 401 out of 632 votes in Congress while campaigning.

But, I suppose it’s comforting for him to be stepping up to the plate now to take part in the clean-up of this economic disaster -considering he is partly to blame for championing deregulation with his pal Phill Gramm, passing legislation that paved the way for this impending economic implosion.

I’m bird-walking, so let’s get back to John McCain lying to his celebrity friends.

So David Letterman believes McCain and thanks him for the phone call. Then, he comes to find out that John McCain isn’t on a flight back to Washington, nor is he on his way to the airport, nor is he stuck in traffic on route to his “Straight Talk Express”, no…he’s being interviewed.

By who?

CBS’s Katie Couric, in the CBS Evening News studio, just down the street from “The Late Show” studio.

If you’re going to lie John McCain, you might want to consider not doing it to someone who’s on the same network as the interview you decided to give to try to politcize the financial crisis. I know McCain doesn’t understand fancy technology very well, but there are these things called network feeds that people in production booths have access to…

You’ve gotta love David Letterman for saying what sooo many people were thinking. Enjoy.

The Economy

John McCain is Wrong

A person has to wonder what color is the sky in Senator John McCain’s world?

Because it’s becoming more and more clear that he is not inhabiting the same world as the rest of us.

As middle-class families continue to struggle to make ends meet in an economy that looks worse and worse with each passing day, John McCain declares that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong”.

I guess it’s easier to see the strength in the economy sitting in one of your 8 houses or cruising in one of your 13 cars.

But for the rest of us, who have to choose between putting gas in our beat-up, not-so-new car or getting groceries for the week, things aren’t looking so rock solid.

And a President John McCain?

It’s looking like the sky is going to be a different color in his world as well.

He hasn’t offered any real solutions to help the middle-class.

Off-shore drilling that won’t bring new gas resources to the American people for 20 years? It helps no one but the Oil Industry.

Deregulating healthcare like John McCain did with the banking industry? We see how well that’s worked out as companies crumble and taxpayers are called upon to pick-up the pieces.

Kicking lobbyists out of Washington? Well it could be a conceivable goal if John McCain just keeps hiring them to run his campaign.

And what’s worse is that John McCain is lying to the American people as often as he can as much as possible.

He knows that Barack Obama will put middle-class families first by providing a tax cut of up to $1,000.00 for more than 90% of working Americans.

He knows that Barack Obama has been working to stop the mortgage crisis since 2006 when he introduced legislation aimed at stopping mortgage transactions that promoted fraud or abuse.

He knows that Barack Obama will show his lobbyist pals to the door since Obama has not accepted contributions from lobbyists or PACs throughout this campaign.

I don’t know what color the sky is in John McCain’s world, but I have no doubt that when I look up at the sky it’s the same color sky that Barack Obama sees.

John McCain is wrong and what’s worse is that he knows it.

Barack Obama is the change we need.