On Thursday, June 29, 2017 a delegation from Massachusetts Peace Action and several other groups met with Morgan Bell, Congressman Seth Moulton’s Aide to discuss the People’s Budget.
The People’s Budget is an alternative to the Trump/Ryan budget. The Republican budget is one of desolation: desolation of human services, infrastructure upgrades, amoungst so many other cuts. Contrarily, the People’s Budget is one of abundance: an abundance of money funneled into human services we care about and rely upon for basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing, education, and healthcare. Mass Peace Action will be working diligently with community members across the state to encourage them to contact their legislators to support the People’s Budget.
In attendance at the meeting with Morgan Bell were Sunny Robinson and Susan Nicholson both of North Shore Coalition of Peace & Justice, Meredith McCulloch and Brown and Lois Pulliam of the First Parish in Bedford, Paige White MAPA Intern, John Schuchardt of the House of Peace, Jeff Barz-Snell First Church in Salem, Marty Robb and Rich Fitzpatrick of the Grace Center, Barbara Haack of North Shore Peace & Justice and Merrimack Valley People for Peace, and Michelle, MAPA’s Assitant Director.
The meeting was a round table in which each member of the delegation spoke to a specific piece of People’s Budget. Susan Nicholson commenced the meeting by talking about the poor state of the roads and crumbling infrastructure across the Commonwealth. She spoke about the need for the North South Rail Link. Michelle noted Representative Neal (CD1) is promoting the East-West Rail Link and asked if Moulton is working with Neal on this. Bell stated Moulton’s top priority is infrastructure and transportation and that he wants high speed rail between Boston and Washington, DC.
Rich Fitzpatrick spoke about healthcare. Oftentimes, he explained, people have no access to a primary care physician which leads them to use the emergency room because their chronic illness/injuries are poorly managed. This leads to higher costs to what should be routine care. Because patients cannot not pay the exorbitant bill, the hospitals demand to be compensated by the state for the care they provided. The state then raises taxes to cover the unfair costs of emergency services for routine care. He also mentioned there is no line item in the budget for day shelters. The lack of day shelters negatively affects homeless who have to be out of their night shelters by 6a and not allowed back in until 6p. He called this a “siloed bureaucracy.”
Marty Rob spoke about housing, concurred with Rich about day shelters, and discussed how the model of public housing has changed over the decades. Sunny added the need for increasing federal funds for affordable housing utilizing all the models of funding it, all of which are included in the People’s Budget.
Sunny thanked Moulton for supporting the immigrant community. She spoke about the need for immigration overhaul to include a path for citizenship, not eliminating funding to cities that declare themselves sanctuary cities, and to prevent the funding for building of any walls or establishing bans. She implored Moulton to pressure ICE to stop separating immigrant parents from children. She also spoke about how NAFTA has led to massive migration of South and Central American refugees into the US.
Barbara Haack spoke about the need to decrease the military budget. She stated how immoral it is to spend billions on the military while neglecting those who live in the US. She promoted diplomacy and humanitarian aid. Bell stated Moulton will be proposing an increase in the budget for the State Department and how he’s against wasteful Pentagon spending. Barbara then went on to bring up nuclear disarmament at which time Bell seemed to get uncomfortable. Bell did state Moulton often works with Represntative Kinzinger who is a Republican veteran.
John spoke about the need to build relationships and how he wants Moulton to respond appropriately to the Triplets of Evil – racism, economic exploitation, militarism. He called the triplets “cancer”. Bell interrupted to say Moulton does not want to “throw the military at every problem”.
Brown and Lois Pulliam spoke about the need to bring the military budget down, to end the fruitless military exercises in the endless wars. Brown also stated Moulton is silent on taxing the rich and closing corporate loopholes. He then brought up the environment and how pleased he is Moulton joined the Climate Solutions Caucus. Bell stated Moulton was opposed to Kinder-Morgan’s pipeline through Congressional District 6. His opposition was to the manner in which Kinder-Morgan went about laying the line (IE: the process) but she didn’t say he opposed Kinder-Morgan, or the pipeline in general, just the process in which Kinder-Morgan work. Bell is the member of Moulton’s staff who is the “climate person”. She stated he believes in wind and solar.
Jeff spoke about the cuts to the EPA. Michelle spoke about the carbon tax and how it may reduce traffic on the highways and byways around Boston and all of Massachusetts and surrounding states. Bell spoke about how Moulton may hold a town hall or round table on climate issues. He is against offshore drilling off the New England coastline.
John brought up the need to abolish all nuclear weapons, take them off hair trigger alert status, prevent a first strike against North Korea and Iran. He stated Moulton has a 1950s mindset about nuclear weapons. Again, Bell seemed concerned about this topic and posed the following question: “If the US and other nuclear states disarm, do you trust North Korea and Iran?” John answered “to point a gun at you is to use a gun. It’s no different with nuclear weapon.”
Paige spoke about education. Sunny interjected and said how disappointed she is Moulton supported Question 2 (charter schools). Paige continued by asking what his plan is for high percentage student loans and how to keep students from going bankrupt before they start their careers. Bell stated Moulton’s commitment to reducing student debt because he has student loans to pay.
Moulton sits on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Budget Committee.
Learn more about the People’s Budget by looking at the downloadable PDFs here.
Contact Cole or Michelle to have us come to your community to discuss the People’s Budget and how to speak to your elected officials about it.
If you’re in Seth Moulton’s district (CD6), please contact him to encourage his support. He’s been silent on whether he supports the Trump/Ryan Budget or it’s warmer, friendly counterpart, the People’s Budget.
