Monday, September 25, 2006
NationalPriorities.org has a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on Congressional appropriations.
It also breaks down some comparisons for what we could have spent the money on to better our own country.
View the current cost and other comparisons at NationalPriorities.org.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
We are spending $8 billion a month in Iraq. That’s $2 billion each week, $267 million each day, or $11 million each hour. For what we spend in three weeks in Iraq, we could make needed improvements in order to properly secure our public transportation systems. For what we spend in five days, we could put radiation detectors in all of our ports. And for two days in Iraq, we could screen all air cargo.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Tomorrow is the big day: thousands of MoveOn members from Nashville, Tennessee to Phoenix, Arizona will come together at more than 300 rallies across the country to demand an “oil-free” future.
Tomorrow’s National Day of Action is really important because this weekend is the 4th of July holiday and gas prices are on everyone’s minds. We need to seize this moment to make sure the media and the public know that the Republican addiction to oil money is keeping gas prices high and holding America back from the clean energy future that we desperately need.
Can you join us at a rally near you?
National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress
Where: 5 Star Parking across the street from Bob Stivers Shell Station at 10th and A
1011 A St.
San Diego, CA
When: Wednesday, 28 Jun 2006, 4:00 PM
Link to RSVP: http://political.moveon.org/event/oilfree/9551?id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=3
National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress
Where: Mobil Station Hwy 67 (aka Main St)
16992 Sky Valley Rd
Ramona, CA
When: Wednesday, 28 Jun 2006, 4:00 PM
Link to RSVP: http://political.moveon.org/event/oilfree/9650?id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=3
Or click here to search for events near you:
As we write this email, Republicans are using the national frustration with gas prices as an excuse to push through even more giveaways to Big Oil instead of getting serious about clean energy alternatives that can move us away from oil.
Why? Because the oil industry has bought the majority stake in the Republican party. Big Oil has given hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans and in return, Big Oil has received billions in subsidies from Congress.
We can’t afford Congress’ addiction to oil money anymore. It keeps gas prices high, keeps us dependent on the Middle East and is blocking progress on a clean energy future,
Congress needs to know that we’re paying attention. We need them to start working for us, not Big Oil. Tomorrow we’re going to make it clear that we want an oil-free, clean energy future and we want it now.
Can you join us on our National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress?
Renewable and alternative energy sources, like biofuels, hybrids, solar and wind power are ready today, but Congress’s addiction to oil money is holding us back. Breaking the addiction to oil is the first step towards energy independence and the clean energy future we all want.
Thanks for all you do,
–Nita, Matt, Tom, Eli and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006
Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.3 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you’d like to support our work, you can give now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/email.html?id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=6
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Here’s an interesting graph of yearly US budget deficit or surplus from 1961 to 2004. Many argue that the war on terrorism is expensive and has required more government spending in areas such as Homeland Security and that GW Bush has had to deal with events during his administration that cannot be compared with previous administrations. Well take a look at the chart during 1960 to say, 1975. Can you think of any siginificant event that might have also potentially caused a major drain on the US budget… maybe some kind of war? Like maybe Vietnam? It didn’t though. It’s all about how smart the guy at the helm is. Clearly GW has no idea how to run an economy.
There’s not much more to say… the picture says it all.
Click on image to view full size.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Today in 1773, Colonists stage their historic Boston Tea Party, as colonists dressed as Indians board three British ships in Boston harbor throw 342 chests of tea overboard in an act of rebellion against unfair taxation represented by England’s enactment of the Tea Act passed earlier that year.
Friday, November 11, 2005
ExxonMobil recently announced the largest quarterly profits—$9.9 billion—of any American corporation in history. Of course nobody is going to condemn the right of a business to earn profit, it’s the reason businesses exist and is the cornerstone of a healthy capitalistic society. We are not, after-all, a socialist state. But there are currently congressional hearings going on regarding the recent oil industry profits and whether ExxonMobil is unfairly raising prices while at the same time crushing any and all attempts to fund alternative energy research.
Via MoveOn:
During yesterday’s hearings on recent record oil industry profits, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) told the oil executives, “People are concerned about fairness and justice at a time of sacrifice. Your sacrifice appears to be nothing.”….
The only answer to the current energy crisis is energy independence. That’s something we’ll be working on together in the next few weeks—one of the big positive things progressives stand for. And we’re starting with ExxonMobil, the biggest obstacle in the way.
Exxon owes much of its lobbying success to close ties to Republican leaders. Over the last decade, Exxon has given more than $5.2 million to Republicans, while giving less than $650,000 to Democrats.3 This year 91% of Exxon’s political contributions have gone to Republicans.4 In turn, Republican energy policy has amounted to a series of massive handouts to the oil industry. Even now, with Republicans grandstanding with show hearings on television, they refused to make the oil executives testify under oath.5 Together with the coalition, we’ll deliver your petition signature to ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, and we’ll send a copy to Congress to help break Exxon’s stranglehold on our government.
There are four main areas in which Exxon needs drastic change:
1. With gas prices near $3 a gallon, it’s outrageous to watch ExxonMobil rake in record profits while refusing to support greater fuel economy or invest significant amounts in cleaner, healthier energy.
2. ExxonMobil is the only oil company that remains part of Arctic Power, the group lobbying Congress to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Congress will cast the final vote on drilling in the Arctic shortly.
3. ExxonMobil has spent over $15 million since 1998 to deny the existence of global warming by funding junk science groups to cloud the debate. The company lobbies against efforts to fight global warming even as it alone is responsible for 5% of the world’s output of the main type of global warming pollution.
4. Remember the Exxon Valdez tragedy? Exxon’s tanker killed hundreds of thousands of seals, otters, birds, fish and whales when it spilled 11 million gallons of thick, deadly crude oil into the waters of Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound. Yet despite making a record profit of $25 billion last year, ExxonMobil is still shirking payment of the full amount it owes fishermen and natives hurt by the spill 16 years ago!The Exxpose Exxon campaign includes a dozen leading environmental and public interest groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), True Majority, the Alaska Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Defenders of Wildlife, and more.
If you want to learn more about his issue and sign a MoveOn.org petition to ExxonMobil, you can click on this link: http://political.moveon.org/exxon/?id=6320-4350126-2Vyr_9mTzR32AKYeWNjb5g&t=3.
Technorati Tags: ExxonMobil, Movon.org, energy, global+warming
Thursday, August 25, 2005
MoveOn.org has sent out an email alert about the vote to eliminate the Estate Tax during the next session of the Senate.
As soon as the Senate returns to Washington in September, they’ll be voting on the permanent elimination of the Estate Tax for the richest 2 percent of Americans.1 If the Estate Tax is repealed, millionaires will save close to $1 trillion dollars in the first ten years and that tax burden will shift to millions of ordinary Americans and future generations.2 The vote will be really close, Republican leaders are just one or two votes away.Responsible Democratic senators have been able to hold the line on the Estate Tax for some time, but now a few Democrats are starting to waver. They continue to feel heat from President Bush and the tax-cut lobby, but they haven’t heard from you. That’s why we’re launching an emergency petition to let the Senate know that we’re paying attention and are ready to hold them accountable. If we can gather 200,000 signatures by next week, we will deliver them to senators in key states.
You can learn more and sign the petition at http://www.political.moveon.org/estatetax/.
Technorati Tags: Estate+tax, Republicans, Democrats, MoveOn.org
Friday, June 3, 2005
The number one book on the New York Times best sellers list is
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
It’s rated 4 out of 5 stars at Amazon.com, where you can read more reviews.
Technorati Tags: best sellers, books, Amazon.com, New York Times
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Wal-Mart, the largest employer in America, is using its economic power to force taxpayers to pay for costs every other large company in the US pays for. They are using the savings to increase the profits to their shareholders. According to Wal-Mart’s latest annual report , their own website, and SEC filings, Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer ($285 Billion in sales) and the largest employer in the US (1.6 million employees around the world). They account for 3% of global retail sales and they are immensely profitable. Said their President to their shareholders, “Our fiscal year ending January 31, 2005 was another record year for Wal-Mart. We topped $10 Billion in net income for the first time in our history and added almost $29 Billion in sales.” The results were so good they increased their dividends to shareholders and gave their President a $4 million bonus. So Wal-Mart isn’t hurting.
Wal-Mart’s average wage is $9.68 an hour. That’s $19,300 a year, $1,600 a month. And that’s the average, many make less. The result is that many of Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million US employees live below the poverty line and many are eligable for Medicaid, the state programs that provide healthcare to the indigent. The result is that state governments around the US are having to pay for the cost of healthcare for an employer who last year made $10 Billion in profits. And who paid the bill? The taxpayers, of course. This is going to become a big scandal as more and more states wake up to what’s happening.
In Georgia, 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees were in the states’s Medicaid program. The same report identified a hospital in North Carolina where “31 percent of its 1,900 patients were Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid, and an additional 16 percent were Wal-Mart employees with no insurance at all.” And in California the University of California at Berkley reported that “the healthcare expenses of uninsured Wal-Mart employees were costing the already economically-strapped state $32 million a year in taxpayer funds.” A TV station in Des Moines found the same thing in Iowa. In Alabama 3,864 children of Wal-Mart employees have cost the state as much as $8.2 million. In Florida, 12,300 Wal-Mart workers are eligible for Medicaid and 29,900 Wal-Mart employees and dependents have enrolled in Medicaid. There have been similar findings in West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington State and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
How have the states reacted? The New York Times reported on 5/6/05 that Maryland recently passed a bill requiring employers to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on healthcare benefits. Connecticut is considering the same. Massachusetts and Colorado are considering tracking and publishing the names of employers whose employees’ healthcare is being paid by taxpayers.
The public policy issue is straightforward. Should a company like Wal-Mart, who is wildly successful by any measure, have the right to force many of their employees to look to Medicaid for their healthcare? I can’t think of a single reason that Wal-Mart could use to justify their policy. It’s greed, pure and simple. The largest emplyer on earth is forcing individuals to live below the poverty line just because they can.
Technorati Tags: Medicaid, Wal-Mart, healthcare costs
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid. — President Dwight D. Eisenhower November 8, 1954
Read the original: The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
Technorati Tags: Eisenhower, privatizing social security
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
California taxpayers were left holding the bag for the corporate greed at Enron. The same is about to happen on a much larger scale with airline pension plans. In 2002, the established airlines were hit by a sudden drop in revenues (post 9/11) and, because they were highly unionized, they couldn’t reduce their costs fast enough. The federal government set up the Air Transporation Stabilization Board to give the airlines loan guarantees so that they would have more time to sort out their problems and avoid bankruptcy. But the major airlines sent their lobbyists to Washington to campaign the Board to reject United’s request for $1.8 Billion in guarantees. United was the weakest of the majors and the rest thought this an excellent opportunity to reduce competition. The Board agreed that United was too risky and turned them down. United immediately went into bankruptcy.
Yesterday, the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Chicago allowed United to terminate its pension plans. United’s payments into the plans over the next five years would have been $3 Billion. United couldn’t afford that so the court cancelled the obligation. That’s not all. United’s unpaid pension plan obligations are a total of $9 Billion. So what happens now? Another branch of the federal government, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, will now pick up those pension obligations. In other words, the intense lobbying by the other airlines to eliminate a competitor, that saved a potential $1.8 Billion loss on a loan guarantee to United in 2002, has now cost the goverment $9 Billion.
And that’s only the beginning. Do you know who invented this trick of handing off pension obligations to the federal government? USAirways. They did the same thing last year to the tune of $3 Billion and they did get a fedreal loan guarantee back in 2002. And now who’s next? Delta. Their unfunded pension liability is $5 Billion and they’re looking for ways to walk away from that. United’s win is looking like a great strategy about now, for all the majors. The total cost to the US Taxpayer could be $40 Billion.
You wonder how all this might have been avoided if, back in 2002, the discussion weren’t so focussed on short-term corporate greed. And how come the members of the Stabilization Board were so easily convinced? For democracy to work, we have to believe that our government institutions are working for our best interests. That’s not what happened in this case. Short term corporate greed won; the taxpayers lost.
Technorati Tags: United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, corporate greed, pension liabilities, Air Transportation Stabilization Board, Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation
Monday, May 9, 2005
Political Animal at The Washington Monthly has posted an interesting article on the economy when the President is either republican or democrat.
The results are simple: Democratic presidents have consistently higher economic growth and consistently lower unemployment than Republican presidents. If you add in a time lag, you get the same result. If you eliminate the best and worst presidents, you get the same result. If you take a look at other economic indicators, you get the same result. There’s just no way around it: Democratic administrations are better for the economy than Republican administrations.
The article ponders why Republican Presidents ever get elected if the economy is always better with a Democratic President at the helm. Their conclusion is that Republicans produce great economic growth for all income classes during election years, and that’s what voters remember most.
Bottom line: if you’re well off, vote for Republicans. But if you make less than $150,000 a year, Republicans are your friends only one year in four. Caveat emptor.
Read the full article at The Washington Monthly
Technorati Tags: economy, democrat, republican, election, economic growth
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