Letter to Congresswoman Sue Myrick

Dear Congresswoman Myrick,

I am writing to express my disappointment with my government at the inability to come to a mutual compromise on the issue of raising the debt ceiling. I find it hypocritical to ask for a balanced budget amendment that takes money away from programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and education while protecting the wealthiest Americans from paying higher taxes. Wealthy Americans are paying historically low taxes thanks to the Bush tax cuts that unfortunately the United States congress along with the President have recently renewed. I hope you'll remember that the last time we had a government surplus and a chance to pay down our deficit was before these tax cuts went into effect.

I am in favor of a balanced budget but it cannot and absolutely should not be done in favor of penalizing the economically disadvantaged. Everyone needs to do their fair share.

It is easy to say that wealthy Americans are already paying their fair share because they pay a higher percentage of their income. It is easy to say that the poor among us do not pay their fair share because people who are economically disadvantaged don't pay income taxes. The truth is that we are all in this together. The "us vs. them" paradigm has been alive and rampant in this country for far too long and it's time that our elected officials take a stand against it. Pass a budget that is truly fair and balanced. The Bush tax cuts are a luxury that America can not afford.

The progressive tax system is flawed but it reflects the best thinking of our time. I don't like to pay taxes but they are a necessary cost of the freedoms and services that we enjoy as Americans. A fair approach to tax increases would be to raise everyone's taxes. A tax increase of one half of a percent would raise a significant amount of income for the government.

Of course this type of approach must be paired with spending cuts and reforms to programs that are inefficiently run. I only ask that you continue to consider all of your constituents and the services that they have come to rely on when making decisions for our mutual benefit.

Thank you for your continued service. To serve one's community is a noble profession and I admire the work you do.

Thank you for your consideration,

Ian Hartner

Engaged!

It's been a few months since my last blog entry. A lot has happened since this summer and I thought given recent events it might be a good time to update.

This semester has been challenging for a number of reasons. Course work has been heavy, I've been laid off from my job at Prince of Peace, and I find myself missing Emily like crazy while she is on internship in Ohio. It's been really difficult for both of us to be 500 miles apart 90% of the time. My visits to Toledo have been great but I wish they were longer and more frequent...

I've met some really great people on my visits to Toledo. Two members of the congregation, Gene and Janet, have really been a great help to Emily and have taken very good care of her, they always take us out to dinner when I come to town and always include Emily in things that they do. There are a lot of older members with very low incomes. The amazing thing, and Emily will back me up on this, is that they all love to give, sometimes until it hurts, most times it hurts. It's as if the charge they get from giving makes the hurt worth it...

Two other people out of many worth mentioning that I am particularly fond of are Adam and Mildred. Adam is probably in his late 30's with a mentality somewhat like a 10 year old. He is a very "sweet" guy, as Emily would say. He's always very happy and very excited to talk to you. He is also very concerned with people liking him and always does his best to put his best foot forward and is very thoughtful and great. He loves the Toledo Mud-Hens so Emily and I are thinking about taking him to a game in the spring.

Mildred is very old and grandmotherly. She refers to me as Emily's "Sweet Petunia" which I find hilarious. We took Mildred to an event hosted by a local church at a near-by comedy club when I was in Toledo for Thanksgiving and we all had a wonderful time. Every time I would come to Toledo, Emily would say that I had to meet Mildred and I was very glad when I finally met her.

This school year I have the amazing opportunity to work in the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry of the New Jersey Synod of the ELCA. This office works with the state government independently and through coalitions to try and pass legislation that the church believes strongly in. We have been focusing on Low-income housing, LIHEAP (Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance Program), Anti-hunger, and Anti-poverty issues. It's been a wonderful experience and I work with an amazing supervisor who teaches me more than I ever imagined I would learn. So if you want to know what I plan to do with my seminary degree, this is it. I want to advocate for the marginalized and help work with state and/or federal governments to improve the qualitiy of life for everyone, no exceptions.

Ok, so you're probably reading this thinking "wow, this is all really nice but I started reading because it says 'engaged' at the top of the page!"

Emily and I are officially engaged to be married as of December 24, 2008. We will be married in Newton, NC on October 10, 2009. So far we've picked a date (but not a time) and the places to have the ceremony and reception (as long as Emily's parents approve.) The colors for the wedding will be brown and cream with both the bridesmaid's dresses and the grooms tuxes being brown with cream colored accents. We haven't maid official decisions about the bridal party but I think we should have that nailed down in the next week. Emily and her mom are out right now getting pedicures and if I had to guess, I'd say that they were also buying a wedding gown.

We've also decided on some things for the service. We're definitely going to have communion but we're going to skip the unity candle. There will be lots of singing and hopefully lots of involvement from our seminarianish friends. We met with Pastor Jane of Beth Eden this morning and we were very happy with the outcomes from that meeting so things are certainly looking up, as if being engaged wasn't enough :-D

We are both very thankful for your kind regards and prayers! More to come later, I'm sure.

Picture New Leadership on Global Poverty and Debt!

My previous blog entry was concerning a campaign at Jubilee USA entitled “Stop the Vulture Culture!” We are excited to report that Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) will introduce a bill into the House of Representatives outlining regulations and penalties for companies who engage in the profiteering of defaulted sovereign debt. It’s time to start calling your Members of Congress to ask them to co-sponsor this Vulture Funds legislation!

Another campaign at Jubilee is “Picture New Leadership on Global Poverty and Debt.” We’re calling on the next president of the United States to take an affirmative stance on debt cancellation and to provide more and better aid to highly indebted countries. We are also asking the next President to appoint a Secretary of the Treasury who will share these goals.

So, let’s start at the beginning. Why is debt relief important? In the case of Haiti, the average family used to spend about 80% of their budget on food. The price of food has now doubled in a very short period of time, which as you can guess or have probably seen on the world news, has led to a hunger crisis in Haiti.

What does this have to do with debt? Haiti accrued 45% of its $1.46 billion debt under its two notoriously brutal dictators, “Papa-Doc” and “Baby-Doc” Duvalier. The Duvalier’s squandered the money loaned to them by creditor institutions and used very little of it to help the citizens of Haiti. It is reported that “Baby-Doc’s” wife Michele Duvalier spent $20,000 on a weekend shopping spree in New York City.

The point is that the citizens of Haiti, now people living in the world’s first black republic, are victims of an irresponsible regime and should not be made to pay the odious and illegitimate debts accrued by the Duvaliers.

Haiti currently pays $58 million in debt repayment and interest annually, which is diverting money, energy, and attention away from the hunger crisis in Haiti. That’s over 1 million dollars per week that could be put towards relief efforts.

Does debt relief work? Yes! Social spending in countries that receive debt relief has gone up by 75%. The funds are being used to abolish school fees, provide free immunizations, fight HIV/AIDS, and improve access to safe drinking water!

The benefits don’t stop at social improvements. Extreme environmental degradation has left Haiti more susceptible to natural disasters such as mudslides and Hurricanes. Debt relief could expand Haiti’s environmental budget ten fold and help them come up with a sustainable strategy for protecting their citizens from natural disasters.

By this point I’m sure you’re wondering what you can do to help. Jubilee’s Picture new leadership campaign is asking for groups of people to get together and take a picture that can be sent to both Senator’s McCain and Obama’s campaign offices. The picture should be of you and your friends, office, or any other group holding a sign that says; “Picture an end to Global Poverty! More and Better Aid!” Debt relief is a root solution for many other social problems all over the planet and we need you to get involved!

E-mail your picture to Mercedes@jubileeusa.org and we’ll put it up on our website and fax it in to your local campaign offices, make sure to tell us where you’re from in your e-mail. For more information about our “Picture New Leadership” campaign visit www.jubileeusa.org/leadership.html.

Vulture Culture!

So, part 2 of My beatitudes blog is going to outline one of our new fall campaigns at Jubilee USA. It's a little sad that I'll be working on this for the next month and won't be here in the fall to see it's effectiveness but maybe someone will keep me in the loop!

"Vulture Culture" Is a campaign to stop vulture funds from preying on small impoverished countries.

Let's start at the beginning, why are these countries in debt to begin with and who do they owe the money to? Many highly impoverished poor countries ascertain debt through dictators and governments who greedily mismanaged the funds collected by the state from the people whom they serve. When a country runs out of money they have the option to borrow money from sources such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Later, after these governments have been removed from power, the country is left with large amounts of debt that can total hundreds of billions of dollars. The country can then apply for debt cancellation from their creditor, a practice that Jubilee supports in full.

Sometimes before a deal is finalized for debt reduction or cancellation, a company will swoop in and buy the debt from the creditor, usually for slightly more than the amount that the creditor has agreed to settle the debt to the poor country. This company will often draft a thick legally binding contract that an impoverished nation may not have the legal expertise to be able to see the full legal scope of the contract.

If you haven't guessed already, these company's have been nick-named 'vulture funds.' After the poor country has payed the agreed upon amount, the 'vulture fund' will then sue them for the original amount of the loan.

For Example>
Romania loans Zambia $15 million. Zambia was not able to repay the loans because the farming equipment they bought with the loan did not work well and European Agricultural subsidies rendered Zambia unable to hold stake in the global market place. Romania and Zambia came to an agreement to liquidate the debt to $3 million. Donegal International saw this as an opportunity and paid Romania $3.3 million for the debt. Due to interest and back payments, the debt was valued at this time to be $30 million. This transaction occurred while Chiluba, a notoriously corrupt man, was President of Zambia.

By the time Zambia had settled on a debt settlement with Donegal International, the value of the debt was held at $44 million. Donegal International settled on a re-payment figure of $15 million (does that number sound familiar?).

Soon after, Zambia stopped paying the debt saying that it was accrued under corrupt circumstances. Donegal waited to sue Zambia until one month before Zambia qualified for HIPC, the Highly Impoverished Poor Countries Intitiative. The G8 leaders in 2005 voted to relieve all of Zambia's debt. Unfortunately, the Donegal International debt was not included because it was not held by a country but rather by a company. Donegal International then took this opportunity to sue Zambia for $55 million, the full amount of the original debt plus interest and penalties. After the case was taken to a British court the debt was reduced to $15.5 million, $.5 Million more than the original loan.

So, Jubilee is on a mission to "Stop the Vulture Culture!" Soon there will be a petition at www.stopvultureculture.org that you can sign and we'll deliver it to as many banks involved in vulture activity as we can! Get educated and stay tuned for more information!

MemorySuppliers.com

The fine people at MemorySuppliers.com are giving me $15 back on my order today for posting this link to their website on my blog. Thank you Memory Suppliers!

Part 1 of my Beatitudes Society Blog

So, this week I am required as part of my fellowship to blog three times. This is the first one. Enjoy!


Greetings from Columbus, OH!

I’m currently sitting in the Port Columbus Airport waiting for a connecting flight through NY to finally arrive back in my summer hometown of Washington DC.

For those of you who may not know what Jubilee USA does, here’s a brief rundown. Jubilee is an organization committed, like many other organizations, to ending global poverty. Jubilee insists that debt cancellation for developing nations is one of the most important things we can do to fight poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Why debt relief? It turns out that many highly impoverished poor countries have borrowed money from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other lending sources and have been sacrificing the well being of their citizens in order to pay down their debts, some of which were acquired under brutal dictatorships. Lending conditionality, vulture funds, and high interest rates are the three main contributors to global poverty where debt is concerned, but I’ll spare you a lecture on odious and illegitimate debt.

This weekend I’ve had the opportunity to attend Jubilee’s annual grassroots organizing conference in Columbus, OH. It was a jam-packed weekend of speakers and workshops, panels and fun. I was assigned to camcorder and picture taking duty for most of the weekend which turned out to be perfect. It gave me the opportunity to walk around and meet lots of folks from all over the country and to sit in and record some very interesting workshops on debt relief. Organizing a conference, as a co-worker put it, is a lot like having a baby. It needs constant attention. Needless to say it was a busy weekend.

Later this week I’ll catch you up on some of the things I’ve been doing in the office. Here's what you can look forward to: I’ll continue putting together my network of seminarians, trying to come up with community leaders to participate in an interfaith dialogue about debt relief and analyzing data to help with some strategic planning. I’ll also give you some insider information about our upcoming fall campaigns, “Stop the Vulture Culture” and “Picture an End to Global Poverty: A Call to the Next President to Make Debt Relief a Serious Priority, and Appoint a Treasury Secretary Who Will Do the Same. (We’re trying to come up with a better name…)

Lots of states, little time

This has been a marathon week. Emily and I started out last Friday and drove down to North Carolina for her friends Anna and John's wedding. Emily was the Maid of Honor so we had to be there early for the rehearsal dinner and other such activities. I got to hang out in the Hotel while Emily and Dr. Rainbow went to the festivities on Friday which was just fine with me as I had some work I needed to get done. I didn't get any of it done because there was a b-list movie on HBO but I had a nice night anyway, relaxing at least. You may be wondering who Dr. Rainbow is... Dr. Rainbow is Emily's friend from Davidson and yes, that is actually her last name, Dr. Catherine Rainbow....

The wedding was really swank. It was at a country club in Raleigh, and they served Filet Mignon, had a swing band and and open bar. There were 270 people there. It was a touch awkward since I knew absolutely no one and Emily was in the wedding. I kept getting the 'who is that' stare from everyone in sight. Oh well, at least I had beer to keep me company.

We left North Carolina on Sunday after Brunch and drove up to Washington D.C. to Spend the night at my cousin Matt's place, where I'll be staying this summer while working at Jubilee USA. The plan was to go and see where the Jubilee Office actually was and to take the proper metro devices to arrive there on time for my first day of work. It didn't work out that way... We didn't even get to the bus stop in the way we should have. We walked around 3 city blocks instead but finally got there. We got on the bus and didn't have the right change, thankfully the bus driver let us ride for free "you'll spend enough when you get downtown" he said...

We rode the bus all the way to the Capitol building when I realized that I didn't actually know where Jubilee was located aside from being 1 block behind the Capitol Building to which Emily noted that this information wasn't as helpful as I thought it might be. Oh well. We went to the Newseum instead! The Newseum is a very cool museum and in my opinion is worth the $20 for admission. They have an exhibit of Pulitzer prize winning photos and a significant 9/11 exhibit. Very cool stuff!
To the left is a picture of Emily with Herbert Hoover. He's alive!!!








To the right is Emily on the balcony of the Newseum in front of the Capitol Building, she thinks she's some kind of movie star :-)








We also visited with our friend Ilene from seminary. She has a ginormous house near the Adams Morgan train station. She took Eric and I to an Ethiopian restaurant, that was a new experience. It was very basic, chicken and eggs and such, you have to eat it with bread, meaning that they don't use utensils like a knife or a fork. I also learned that you have to eat it with your right hand which made it difficult for me since I can't feel my right hand, but it turned out ok :-) I think I'm really going to like living in DC this summer. I honestly can't wait to get there!

We drove back Monday night after Emily was finished with her meeting at the Larsh community near Ilene's house. I hope she gets the job there because I'd really like her to be near by this summer. Not to mention what a great experience it would be for her.

Tuesday was a day that I meant to use to get things done but for one reason or another it didn't work out that way. I forget what I did in the morning besides sleep. Tuesday night Emily and I went to pick up Grandmom to go out to dinner with Dad and Diane. I hadn't seen Grandmom since she got back from Florida so I was glad that we were all going out together. I miss her when she's in Florida but I'm glad she goes. She told us that she was thinking about having Gastric Banding surgery in order to lose weight so that maybe she would be able to get around better on her own. I think it's a great idea. It's a little scary but I want her to be comfortable and to live as best as she can. So this week she'll have a cardiac catheter this week and I'll go and stay with her that night to make sure that everything goes smoothly.

Wednesday, I left with a group of students from the seminary to go to the Lutheran office of World Community at the United Nations in New York. We spent Wednesday night getting to New York on many trains and subways. It's never fun trying to navigate New York when you don't know where you're going. We stayed at the Sefarer's and International House which is like a hostel or dormitory for Christian Groups or Military personnel. It was nice enough, each room was small with a single bed, a desk, a sink, and a tv. We shared bathrooms and showers with about 5 other rooms. It was only 1 block from Union Square which made it very convenient to get to the UN. We met with a number of outstanding speakers on the topic of Human rights over the two days and came home with lots of materials to read and study. There's just too much information to let it all out here. Let's just say that it was a great trip and I'm really glad that I went.











Finally back in Philadelphia on Friday night, I got some dinner and hung out with Emily for the rest of the night. We took Grandmom shopping on Saturday morning which is always fun. She took us out to lunch and even bought me some new pillows. Got home around 4:30, ate some dinner then went to the movies with Emily, Annette, and Paul, we saw the new Ben Stein Documentary, 'Expelled.' I didn't care for it but I think Emily did so while I can't recommend it I can't say not to see it. Helpful, I know...

Ok class is almost over and I'm done writing. More to come after exams in late May...