The following analysts are available to comment on President Clinton’s policies and his State of the Union address:

KAREN DOLAN
Coordinator of the Progressive Challenge project, Dolan said: “The economic boom has bypassed millions of Americans; there’s been a widening of the gap between rich and poor. We need more progressive taxation… Clinton has missed an incredible historic opportunity to reduce the military budget and shift spending to pressing human needs.”
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EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON
Author of “The Crisis in Black and Black,” Hutchinson said: “The government has not lived up to its promises in ’empowerment zones.’ You see the same blight in many urban areas, if not worse — high unemployment, crumbling schools, poverty.”
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GWENDOLYN MINK
Professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz and author of “Welfare’s End,” Mink said: “Confusing a decline in the welfare rolls with a decline in poor mothers’ need for welfare, the administration has declared welfare reform ‘a success.’ The state of the union is very, very bad for poor families with children, yet none of the candidates for president seem to care.”

IDA HELLANDER
Executive director of Physicians for a National Health Program, Hellander said: “Clinton’s health plan would cover at best 5 million of the 45 million uninsured; that’s less than the 7 million who have lost their insurance since he took office — many because of his welfare ‘reform.'”
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DEAN BAKER
Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and co-author of the newly released “Social Security: The Phony Crisis,” Baker said: “Clinton is crowing about the stock market, but on Wednesday the Congressional Budget Office projected that after-tax corporate profits would shrink 4 percent in real terms over the next decade. That could spell real trouble.”
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TOM ATHANASIOU
Author of “Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor,” Athanasiou said: “The traditional environmental issues — clean air and water — seem like they’re going well. But if you look at the global ecosystem, things are not being addressed — most notably by Al Gore.”

BOB PETERSON
Co-founder of Rethinking Schools and a fifth grade teacher in Milwaukee, Peterson said: “The U.S. is the richest country in the history of the world in the midst of an unprecedented economic boom — of course we should increase spending on education…”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167