Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Political Strategy Notes For Oct 5th 2011
At HuffPo Pollster, Mark Blumenthal's post "Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet," notes that, despite lowered approval ratings, President Obama lead GOP frontrunners Romney and Perry. Although approval ratings are slightly better predictors of election results than trial heats, "none of these polling numbers can predict the winner of the presidency a year or more before the election," as Blumenthal points out.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Obama Paid Another Visit To Texas Today
For the second time this year, President Barack Obama paid a visit to Texas. Obama attended a fundraiser in Dallas before heading to Mesquite for a 2:55 p.m. speech at Eastfield College. President Obama got a warm reception at his campaign stops at both the Sheraton Hotel in Dallas, Texas and again at Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas.
-- Obama's concluding remarks at Eastfield College --
Dallas, the next election is 13 months away. I need you all to lift your voice -- not just here in Dallas, but anyone watching, anyone listening, everybody following online. I need you to call and tweet and fax and visit and email your congressperson...
At both stops the President pitched his American Jobs Act legislation to crowds of enthusiastic supporters.
Obama used unusually blunt language to rebut critics who say he's engaged in class warfare quoting Ronald Reagan's argument from 26 years ago that tax loopholes for the rich were unfair.
“Last time I checked, Republicans all thought Reagan made some sense,” he said at his Mesquite stop: Now, when I point this out, some of the Republicans in Congress say, ‘oh you’re engaging in class warfare.’ Let me tell you something. Years ago, one great American had a different view. I’m going to get the quote, just so you know I’m not making this up. A great American said that he thought it was ‘crazy’ that certain tax loopholes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying ten percent of his salary. Alright. You know who this guy was? It wasn’t a Democrat. It wasn’t some crazy socialist. It was Ronald Reagan. It was Ronald Reagan. Last time I checked, Republicans all thought Reagan made some sense. So next time you hear one of those Republicans in Congress accusing you of class warfare, you just tell them I’m with Ronald Reagan. I agree with Ronald Reagan that it’s crazy that a bus driver pays a higher tax rate than some millionaire because of a loophole in the tax code. And by the way, I don’t mind being called a warrior for the working class. You guys need someone working for you.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Organized Climate Change Denial To Block Green Programs,Top Scholars Conclude
Riley E. Dunlap, a sociology professor at Oklahoma State, and Aaron M. McCright of Michigan State call it the “climate change denial machine” in their book chapter, “Organized Climate Change Denial,” for the new Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society.
In a note, the authors explain:
The actions of those who consistently seek to deny the seriousness of climate change make the terms “denial” and “denier” more accurate than “skepticism” and “skeptic,” particularly since all scientists tend to be skeptics.
Some try to downplay the central role of the denial machine in U.S. politics, but the fact is that what the deniers have accomplished in this country is unique in the world, going far beyond the spread of disinformation. They have allowed fossil fuel interests to “capture” almost an entire political party (see National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones”).
Here is the conclusion of the study:
GOP Presidential Candidates Support Constitutional Amendments Outlawing Common Forms Of Birth Control
HUCKABEE: Would you have supported a constitutional amendment that would have established definition of life beginning of life at conception?
ROMNEY: Absolutely.
Constitutional amendment give legal rights to fertilized eggs go much farther than merely outlawing abortions. As ThinkProgress’ Marie Diamond noted, they could also have the effect of outlawing common forms of birth control, since contraceptives like the pill and IUDs can prevent fertilized egg from implanting in a woman’s uterus. Personhood amendments consider these types of birth control a form of abortion, and could potentially even treat them the same as homicide. If these amendments make terminating pregnancy a criminal act, they would also deter doctors from saving the lives of women with abnormal pregnancies because any doctor performing an abortion could risk prosecution.
Some of the Republican presidential field’s more radical candidates like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich have already voiced support for giving legal rights to unborn children, but it’s surprising coming from Romney considering that he was staunchly pro-choice for much of his political career.
New Voting Laws Could Keep 5 Million Voters From The Polls In 2012
Strict voting laws in states across the country could affect up to five million voters from traditionally Democratic demographics in 2012, according to a new report (PDF) by the Brennan Center. That's a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.
In 2011, Texas and 17 other state legislatures across the country debated a requirement to have voters show one of a very limited selection of government issued photo identification to polling place officials to qualify to vote. The motivation for this legislative discussion is the widely distributed conservative allegation that Democratic voters commonly commit in-person voting impersonation fraud to qualify to vote.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Van Jones Calls For Progressive Push Back Against Tea Party
Van Jones
Jones is talking about the Take Back the American Dream conference, organized by the Campaign for America's Future with support from Rebuild the Dream, will be happening on October 3 - 5 in Washington, DC. Find out more and register online.
Jones was President Obama's "green jobs czar" until he resigned in fall of 2009.
Transcript below:
CNN Poll: Tea Party Unfavorability Up 27 Points Since January 2010
The Tea Party movement has had some PR problems since the almost-default of the summertime debt fight.
TPM has reported on the increasingly negative view of the conservative movement Americans have taken, and on Tuesday there was more bad news: CNN polling, which has tracked the Tea Party’s popularity since January 2010, shows that a majority of Americans now views it unfavorably.
The poll shows that only 28 percent of Americans do view the Tea Party favorably, versus a full 53 percent who don’t. The poll shows that less than twenty percent don’t have an opinion of Tea Partiers, which is the lowest yet — an issue on polling the movement has been that many Americans simply didn’t know enough about it. That has clearly changed since the beginning of last year.
In January 2010, the Tea Party was actually viewed favorabilty by a plurality in the CNN poll, with 33 having a positive view against 26 percent. That unfavorable number continued to grow through out the midterm elections of 2010 (in which a number Tea Party endorsed candidates won) and started to really climb during the period which the Tea Party contingent in Congress has had an effect on policy. Throughout 2011 their unfavorability has been in the high forties and now the fifties.
CNN is not the only organization to find that the Tea Party brand is suffering. A recent AP poll found a similar trend, although the CNN survey showed unfavorability within the same time period to be higher.
The news comes as GOP presidential candidates are trying to vie for the conservative base of the Republican Party, which contains the Tea Party advocates, while still maintaing their viability within a general election. But the more unpopular the Tea Party becomes, the larger the gulf between the primary audience and the general election electorate becomes.
The Tea Party, Right-Wing Media and the Dog That Didn't BarkFriday, September 30, 2011
Gallup: The Continuing Democratic Voter Enthusiam Gap
When the Democratic base voters and activists are enthusiastic about an election Democrats usually win that election.
In the 2008 election about 80% of the Democratic base was very enthusiastic about the election. Obama and Democratic congressional candidates won big at the polls that year.
In contrast, the Democratic base, disappointed by the failure of elected Democrats to stand up to Republican and defend progressive values as strongly as Republicans defend conservative values, polled an enthusiasm level of only 60 percent. The 2010 enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans allowed Teapublican candidates to win control of the U.S. House, as well as many state legislatures and governors' mansions.
According to the new Gallup poll, the gap between the Democrats’ level of enthusiasm compared to the Republicans’ level of enthusiasm is the largest it has been in a decade. A large enthusiasm gap is a bad thing in any political environment, but it’s especially problematic for the Obama campaign, which depended on high enthusiasm to get large turnout numbers from infrequent voters groups, such as young adults in 2008.
After the 2010 Democratic wipeout there was some hope among Democrats that the 2012 Congressional elections wouldn’t be as bad because having Obama on the ballot would inspire his 2008 surge voters to come out again. At this point though, it looks as if Obama’s ability to increase base enthusiasm or turnout is limited.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Poll: Republicans in Congress Help The “Haves” More Than The “Have Nots”
Almost half of all respondents to a new Washington Post poll say Republicans in Congress are doing more to help the “haves” than “have nots,” with fewer than a third saying the GOP treats both sides equally. A tiny 7 percent say Republican lawmakers are helping the have-nots. For contrast, a plurality say President Obama treats society’s “haves” and “have-nots” about equally.
Nearly half of all Americans say President Obama treats society’s “haves” and “have-nots” about equally, perhaps blunting Republican criticism that he is engaged in “class warfare.” Still, nearly three in 10 see the president as overly favoring the “have-nots,” according to a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. Half as many see the president as favoring the “haves.”
Public opinion about Republicans is a bit harsher: almost half say Republicans in Congress are doing more to help the haves, with fewer -- under a third -- saying the GOP treats both sides of the divide about equally.
Yet, despite worsening economic conditions -- and a growing gap between rich and poor -- fewer than half of all Americans, 45 percent, see society as fundamentally divided between haves and have-nots. A slim 52 percent majority say it is not, though that number has dropped significantly since the early days of the Obama administration.
When asked to classify themselves, 48 percent of poll respondents identify among the haves and 34 percent among the have-nots. Current opinions on these questions are close to their long term trends.
Nearly three-quarters of African Americans say society is divided, compared with 40 percent of whites. And more than half of African Americans identify as being among the have-nots. Most whites identify as being among the haves.
Republicans are more apt than others to see Obama helping the have-nots. About four in 10 see this happening, with 16 percent seeing him helping the haves and 31 percent treating both equally. A 46 percent plurality of independents see Obama helping both.
Judgment about the Republicans in Congress is more clear cut, with 47 percent overall seeing them helping the haves; a slender 7 percent the have-nots. That’s very similar to views of former presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan in Pew and Gallup polls.
More than seven in 10 Democrats say Republicans are biased toward the haves. But 60 percent of Republicans say their own party is treating each group about equally. More independents, 46 percent, say the GOP is preferring the haves, while 34 percent say they treat haves and have-nots equally.
Boston Globe: A Deep Health Care Divide In Texas
So Texas has 10% more uninsured adults and 7% more uninsured kids than the national average. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has 15% fewer uninsured adults and 6.5% fewer uninsured kids than the national average. But in conservative world up is down and black is white -- Rick Perry brags about healthcare in Texas while Romney can't run fast enough away from the good he did in this regard as MA's governor.
Boston Globe: "Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country - 24.6 percent - and the number of uninsured that has grown by 35 percent during Governor Rick Perry’s 11-year tenure....
And what is the price Texas pays for so many without insurance? A host of health problems, researchers have found. Overall health care quality for Texas is poorer than in every other state, especially when it comes to preventive, acute, and chronic care, as well as care for diabetes, heart, and respiratory diseases, according to the 2010 report of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality....
Texas ranks third to last in the country for the percentage of adults with a regular source of medical care, according to Commonwealth Fund data on state health system performance....
In a state where 16.8 percent of children are uninsured, more than all but one other state, only half of Texas children have a medical provider who knows them and coordinates their care. More than a third of them have not received recommended medical and preventive care within the year, and immunization rates are low as well. Texas also ranks last in the country in the percent of children who receive needed mental health care....
Doctors recount horror stories of uninsured patients who die of treatable diseases because families delay seeking medical help or must endure long waits for appointments with specialists."
Some Texas miracle....
GOP Trickle Down Tax Cuts Have Never Helped American Families
We see the rich getting richer while everyone else is working harder for less money and going more into debt.
Let's figure out where our jobs and wages went and, most importantly, how to get them back.
Our largest multinational corporations are hording a record treasure of several trillions of dollars in cash rather than investing that money in America and the richest 1% of Americans are sitting on yet more unused wealth.
The Federal Reserve reports corporate cash balances alone grew to $2.05 trillion in September 2011 on a quarter over quarter cash reserve growth rate of nearly 5 percent. Neither the cash rich corporations or the richest 1% of Americans are not putting their decades worth of tax cuts to work to create jobs for Americans.
Doling out yet more tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans and our largest multinational corporations will not induce them to use their already huge treasure trove of cash to create new jobs or move the jobs they have already off shored back to the U.S.We hear talk of trillions over here and billions over there, of government shutdowns, of cutting 100... no 61... no 38 billion dollars from Social Security, Medicare, FEMA disaster recovery, road and bridge maintenance, so our bridges stop falling down. What the heck? If you're like me, you might be thinking -- "Wait, I might actually like that stuff..."
There is a truly courageous alternative — the Congressional Progressive Caucus' Budget proposal, which represents what the American people really want. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has proposed a budget that balances the budget in just ten years without cutting Social Security and Medicare.
The Progressive plan repeals the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, which saves three trillion dollars. Second, the plan cuts corporate taxpayer handouts to pharmaceutical, insurance and petrochemical industries and adds a new income tax bracket for billionaires. That raises at least an additional three trillion dollars. In the next decade the plan also cuts defense spending by about $1.8 trillion. The Progressive plan also lifts the Social Security payroll cap of $106,800 per year (2011) so that wealthy individuals who take home millions and billions of dollars in earnings every year can pay their fair percentage share of Social Security support, too.President Obama is now calling for millionaires, billionaires and billion dollar multinational corporations to pay their fair share of taxes as part of a debt reduction package, In response, Republicans are not only defending the tax cuts they gave to the wealthy over the past decade and more, they are calling for yet more tax cuts for the rich.
The Progressive plan not only protects and strengthens Social Security and Medicare for decades to come, it puts America back to work through infrastructure and high tech investments.
The wealth are the job creators, Republicans argue, and the "trickle down" tax cut economic growth will be hampered if the rich are required to pay their fair share to maintain America's roads and bridges.Americans are starting to understand the truth of the about graph and graph at right; the trillions of dollars of tax cuts Pres. G.W. Bush and Republican controlled congresses gave to millionaires, billionaires and billion dollar multinational corporations in the last decade has never trickled down to every day working man and woman.
In the first public polling available on the so-called "Buffett Rule" specifically -- the proposal to raise taxes on millionaires advocated by billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- Daily Kos/SEIU's weekly "State of the Nation" survey asked the following: Q: Do you support or oppose ensuring that people who make over a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of taxes or more on their total income as those who make less than a million dollars a year?The answer even wasn't close. 73 percent of all Americans, including Republicans, supported the idea, versus 16 percent who did not, and 11 percent who were unsure. Every demographic sub-group favors the idea. Republicans back it 66-17 -- Even self-identified tea partiers, the weakest supporters, are at 52-29.
Support: 73
Oppose: 16
Not sure: 11
In recent polling, voters have shown a willingness to include raising taxes within a plan to address the deificit, and especially on those Americans making $250,000 or more. A recent Pew survey showed 66 percent support for that idea, and 63 percent in a poll from CBS News and the New York Times. The President himself has seemingly grasped on to that sentiment, going on the road promoting his jobs and debt reduction plans with populist rhetoric. It's also further evidence that Obama is distancing himself from the ongoing squabbling of Congress, embracing more popular proposals and taking them directly to voters.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
L'Shanah Tovah - May You Have A Good Year!
Rosh HaShanah (ראש השנה) is the Jewish New Year. It falls once a year during the month of Tishrei and occurs ten days before Yom Kippur. For 2011, Rosh HaShanah begins at sunset September 28, 2011 and ends at nightfall on September 30, 2011. Together, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are known as the Yamim Nora’im, which means the Days of Awe in Hebrew, or more commonly, the High Holy Days.
Rosh HaShanah literally means “Head of the Year” in Hebrew. It falls in the month of Tishrei, which is the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar. The reason for this is because the Hebrew calendar begins with the month of Nissan (when it's believed the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt) but the month of Tishrei is believed to be the month in which God created the world. Hence, another way to think about Rosh HaShanah is as the birthday of the world.
Rosh HaShanah is observed on the first two days of Tishrei. Jewish tradition teaches that during the High Holy Days God decides who will live and who will die during the coming year. As a result, during Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur (and in the days leading up to them) Jews embark upon the serious task of examining their lives and repenting for any wrongs they have committed during the previous year. This process of repentance is called teshuvah. Jews are encouraged to make amends with anyone they have wronged and to make plans for improving during the coming year. In this way, Rosh HaShanah is all about making peace in the community and striving to be a better person.
Even though the theme of Rosh HaShanah is life and death, it is a holiday filled with hope for the New Year. Jews believe that God is compassionate and just, and that God will accept their prayers for forgiveness.
Happy New Year!
Challenge To Texas Voter Registrar Rules And Process
Last week Voting for America (Project Vote) sent a letter to the State of Texas, alleging that various parts of the state's voter registration rules and process violate the National Voter Registration Act.
The challenged areas include the geographical restrictions on where Texas voter registrars may operate, the lack of standards for training voter registrars, the lack of guidance about when an application is considered incomplete, and the requirement that green cards be returned in person within five days.
Project Vote (or Voting for America, Inc.) is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) that promotes voting in historically underrepresented communities, working to ensure that our constituencies can register, vote, and cast ballots that count. The organization was incorporated in 1994 as 'Voting for America,' and officially became 'Project Vote/Voting for America' in 1997. Project Vote is unrelated to Project VOTE!, for which President Obama worked in 1992.
Project Vote has been tied by the right wing messaging network to one of the right's favorite, and now defunct, punching bags, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). A sizable number of Republicans -- 25 percent -- still think ACORN (and by association, Project Vote) is plotting to steal the election for Obama in 2012.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Water Development Board Report Says Texas "Will Not Have Enough"
The Texas Water Development Board has published a draft of its five year 2012 water report for the state. The 295-page plan published last week in the midst of the worst-ever single-year drought Texas has ever experienced, is a sobering read.
This year just set the record for most Federal Emergency Management Agency declared disasters declared in the U.S. And we’ve still got 3 months to go. Most of those disasters are associated with record-shattering extreme weather events matching events climate scientists predict will occur as heat-trapping gases are pumped into the atmosphere fueling global warming and long term climate change.
It is clear that the trendline of major disasters in this country is upward and likely will continue upward for the foreseeable future. And these disasters aren’t merely increasingly in number, but in ferocity.
For Texas the ongoing disaster of increasing ferocity will be that "In serious drought conditions, Texas does not and will not have enough water to meet the needs of its people, and its businesses, and its agricultural enterprises," according to the Texas Water Development Board's report.
According to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas will break another record for the driest 12-month period on record by the end of September. He said the drought has cost Texas $5.2 billion in agricultural losses alone, with at least another billion from drought-related wildfires, and the NCDC says this is already Texas' most costly drought in recorded history.
The Texas Water Development Board's report says that if Texas does not plan ahead, a drought as bad as that of the 1950s could cost Texans $116 billion a year by 2060, the report says, and cause the potential loss of more than one million jobs. Building new reservoirs and wastewater treatment plants and other water infrastructure is projected to cost $53 billion.
The report offered a number of recommendations to the Legislature. Texas lawmakers, it said, should get moving on three reservoir sites (Turkey Peak Reservoir, Millers Creek Reservoir Augmentation, and Coryell County Reservoir). Lawmakers should also make it easier to site other reservoirs, and to transfer surface water between different areas. They should require public water utilities to audit their water losses annually rather than every five years.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Whatever Happened To The American Left?
Today, such institutions are either absent or reeling. With unions embattled and on the decline, working people of all races lack a sturdy vehicle to articulate and fight for the vision of a more egalitarian society. Liberal universities, Web sites and non-governmental organizations cater mostly to a professional middle class and are more skillful at promoting social causes like legalizing same-sex marriage and protecting the environment than demanding millions of new jobs that pay a living wage.
A reconnection with ordinary Americans is vital not just to defeating conservatives in 2012 and in elections to come. Without it, the left will remain unable to state clearly and passionately what a better country would look like and what it will take to get there. To paraphrase the labor martyr Joe Hill, the left should stop mourning its recent past and start organizing to change the future.
Read the full story @ The NYTimes
Associated Press May Day celebration in Union Square, New York City, 1934. Obama Draws More Confidence Than GOP Leaders On Deficit
A new Pew Center report finds that most support raising taxes on high incomes to reduce the deficit and that the public's confidence in congressional leaders, particularly Republican leaders in Congress, has plummeted as the nation prepares for another round of deficit reduction debates. Just 35% say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in Republican leaders in Congress to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with the federal budget deficit, down from 47% in May. Fully 62% say they have little or no confidence in the Republican leaders on this issue.
Public confidence in Barack Obama on the budget deficit, by comparison, has remained largely unchanged.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 22-25 among 1,000 adults finds that 52% express at least a fair amount of confidence in Obama to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with the deficit, virtually unchanged from 55% earlier in the year.
Public trust in Democratic congressional leaders has also suffered - 43% say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in Democratic leaders, down from 51% four months ago.
The survey also finds continued public support for raising the tax rate on high incomes as a way to reduce the federal budget deficit and the size of the national debt.
Read the full report to see comparisons of opinion among Republicans, Democrats and independents, as well as the views of Americans on specific proposals for reducing the nation's debt.
Texas Gov Deverting Public School Funds To Big Oil Tax Refunds
Three commissioners appointed by Gov. Rick Perry may grant some of the nation's largest refineries a tax refund of more than $135 million — money Texas' cash-strapped schools and other local governments have been counting on to help pay teachers and provide other public services. Full AP Story
On June 28, 2011 Gov. Perry signed a $172 billion budget passed by the super Republican majority Texas House and Senate. The budget signed by Gov. Perry cuts $15 billion from the level of spending last authorized in the 2009-11 state budget. The largest individual cut was to public education, which lost over $4 billion over the biennium. While public education received the deepest cuts, other agencies that saw their budgets reduced, too. Other agencies cut included public universities and community colleges (with the two largest universities in the state losing $100 million in funding) and state health and welfare programs, which saw Medicaid and food stamp funds slashed by up to $2 billion. [Full story on Texas debt growth and budget cuts]
The American Petroleum Institute argues that giving oil companies government handouts will create jobs. However, a new report by the House Natural Resources Democratic Staff finds that the major oil companies have actually shed employees while reaping record profits. From 2005 to 2010, Exxon, BP, Chevron, and Shell dumped 11,200 U.S. employees while raking in $546 billion in profits.2011’s Off the Charts Weather and Climate Stats
Climate Central: This year is shaping up to be one of the most extreme — if not the most extreme — years in the United States since instrument records began in the late 19th century. Consider a few statistics from just this past June through August to get a better picture of what's been taking place.
Keep in mind that many studies show that certain types of extreme events, such as heavy rainfall events and heat waves, are already becoming more frequent and intense as the climate warms in response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. However, none of these events listed below have been the subject of detailed climate change attribution studies yet, since those take several months to complete, so it would be premature to speculate how big of a role climate change played in their development and evolution.
Map showing the number of days with temperatures above 100 degrees F during summer 2011. Credit: NOAA/NCDC. - This summer was the second-warmest on record in the United States, and the eighth-warmest globally.
- Of the Lower-48 states, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Louisiana had their hottest summers on record. Two states — Texas and Oklahoma — had average temperatures that were so high, they broke all-time summer heat records for any state in the country. In Texas, the average statewide temperature for the summer was a whopping 86.8°F. Both Texas and Oklahoma eclipsed a benchmark set during the Dust Bowl, when a multiyear drought and a series of withering heat waves transformed the Central states into an arid landscape, driving a mass migration westward.
- During the summer of 2011, every state in the Lower-48 except North Dakota and Vermont experienced at least one day with a temperature exceeding 100°F.
- As of today, nearly 88 percent of Texas is locked in the grips of "exceptional drought" conditions, which is the most severe category on the U.S. Drought Monitor. In order to climb out of the deep rainfall deficit, parts of Texas and Oklahoma would need nearly two feet of rainfall, yet new climate outlooks for the next several months show drier than average conditions are likely to continue through the winter.
- According to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, it is likely that Texas will soon break a record for the driest 12-month period on record, unless there is widespread heavy rain during the second half of September. He said the drought has cost Texas $5.2 billion in agricultural losses alone, with at least another billion from drought-related wildfires, and the NCDC says this is already Texas' most costly drought in recorded history.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Entitlement, My Foot, I Paid Cash For My Social Security Insurance!!!!
By Rob Tornoe - You can find more of his work here.If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you’d have $892,919.98.
If you took out only 3% per year, you would receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.
Entitlement, my foot, I paid cash for my Social Security insurance!!!!Just because congress invested $2.67 trillion of our Social Security Trust Fund in T-Bills, which is counted as 19 percent of our federal debt, doesn't make my Social Security payment benefit some kind of charity or handout!! (The TRUTH About Who Really Owns All Of America's Debt)
Congressional benefits include free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my retirement entitlements !!!!!!
Republicans call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives, and now, when it’s time for us to collect our paid up insurance benefit, Republicans demonize it as an "entitlement" because they want to privatize it to Wall Street to cut the massive debt they created with tax cuts for the rich. "Starving the Government Beast" through tax cuts is a fiscal-political strategy adopted by American conservatives in the 1970's to create or increase existing budget deficits via tax cuts to force future cuts and eventual privatization of Medicare, Social Security, Public Education and every other public government service. [Starving The Beast]
Cartoon by Jen Sorensen with hat tip to the Jobanger blog