| Republicans Are Voting Against Good Legislation Just To Score Political Points, Even If They KNOW They Are Voting Against Good Legislation. Here's the PROOF. A significant factor in this current deficit is the fact that tax collections are falling off, or not increasing as projected because of the prolonged financial crisis. So, don’t you think some economic stimulus would be in order? In spite of the fact that all of the Republicans in Congress voted against the Federal Stimulus plan promoted by Democrats, almost All of them are taking the money and spreading it out to their constituents as if they had something to do with acquiring it! And, while they all acknowledge that the money has stimulated the economy and created jobs in their districts, they still don’t support the legislation which provided the money!
At least 116 Republican governors, senators, and representatives have spent the past year railing against the Recovery Act, while simultaneously requesting funds to create jobs in their districts and taking credit for projects at ribbon-cutting ceremonies.
As the independent PolitiFact put it, they're trying "have their cake... and vote against it too." They know the Recovery Act is creating jobs, but they think attacking it will bring them victory in the 2010 elections.
Wondering what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- President Obama's stimulus bill -- has accomplished? Look at this:
 One year ago tomorrow, after tens of thousands of you shared stories and called your representatives, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And while this anniversary isn't a cause for celebration, there is reason to be optimistic. This chart makes it clear: We're on the road to recovery. Republicans Claim That They Can Give You Better Government At Lower Cost - Reality Is Quite Different Here's a case in point - California: The entire country of Canada has a population which is almost that of California’s. (Canada’s is about 34 million, and it is experiencing record population increases because of international immigration, which Canada’s government is actively promoting. Canada is expected to reach 42 million by 2050.) California’s is at 38,292,687 and its growth is slowing. It is projected to reach more than 42 million by 2030.
Yet, Canada offers universal healthcare to its citizens, while California does not, and Canada is operating better than California, while California was “in the red” or operating at a deficit of more than $21 Billion at the end of November, 2009, with a projected deficit of $41-42 Billion within the next year and a half (from Nov 2009).
While Canada suffered its first deficit since 1996-1997 as a result of the economic crisis, its deficit for 2009 was $28 Billion (U.S.) in 2009, and anticipated $24.7 Billion (U.S.) in 2010. If you were to exclude the economic stimulus packages (C$30 Billion for 2009 - $24.69 Billion U.S., and C$50 Billion for both 2009-2010, $41.15 Billion U.S.), the deficit for 2009-2010 would be $8.23 Billion and $16.47 Billion respectively. That performance is significantly better than California’s, WHILE PROVIDING substantial economic stimulus AND Universal Healthcare to all of its citizens!
On January 29, 2009, a Superior Court Judge ruled that Gov. Schwarznegger held emergency furlough power. As part of the furlough, state offices are now closed on the first and third Friday of every month, from Feb 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010. This is estimated to save the state $1.3 Billion over that time period. California is one of only a handful of states which requires a 2/3rd majority to pass a state budget, and Republicans have blocked most of Democrats proposals, including one earlier in 2009, where the budget shortfall could have been cut by $18 Billion, but Republican Governor Schwarznegger vetoed, saying his demands had not been met. In February, 2009 Governor Schwarznegger and the four legislative leaders concurred on a series of bills that included $15.1 billion in budget cuts, $14.4 billion in tax increases and $11.4 billion in borrowing, much of it subject to voter approval. (Which would have closed the projected $41-42 Billion budget deficit.) An earlier budget failed when the Senate Republican leader, Dave Cogdill, said he thought he had all the votes needed to get the deal done in each house. But, two Republican senators — Dave Cox, who was originally thought to be the last vote needed, and Abel Maldonado, whom Mr. Schwarzenegger had been able to woo into voting against his party in the past — said they would reject the plan. Democrats, who had already given into Republicans’ long-held dreams of large tax cuts for small businesses and for some of the entertainment industry and a proposed $10,000 tax break for first-time home buyers, balked at Mr. Maldonado’s request that the Legislature tuck a bill into the package that would allow voters to cross party lines in primaries. (Allowing voters to cross party lines has always been a boon for Republicans, because they urge their voters to vote in Democratic Primaries in order to vote for the weaker or most conservative candidate, depending on the makeup of the area. That weakens the Democratic majority in the State Legislatures (as well as in national elections), and has nothing to do with fixing the budget, a problem which Republicans have obviously chosen to ignore.)
California finally passed a budget in Feb. 2009, which many Democrats were opposed to, but forced to vote for in order to get something passed, which was supposed to close the $41-42 Billion budget deficit, but in spite of those actions, the most recent figures show that California faces a budget deficit of $20 Billion, ongoing for years to come. Voters rejected that budget in May.
Also in February, California had to delay state income tax refunds, and other payments (of $3.5 Billion), by 30 days because of cash flow difficulties.
On April 1, 2009 sales and use taxes went up by 1%.
Because of California’s budget crisis, on July 2, 2009, the State of California resorted to “paying” its debts with IOUs. Five days later, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, announced that they would stop accepting IOUs by July 10, 2009.
California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the state’s bond rating to the lowest in the nation.
The state had been selling bank-guaranteed short term notes to raise cash, but with the reduction in their credit rating also came a reduction in the sale of their notes.
On July 24, 2009, the state government passed a budget that included $15 Billion in service cuts, including $8.1 Billion in education cuts, which caused the California Board of Regents to vote for a 32% tuition raise for all state universities.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarznegger came to power, when he was elected in a special election in November, 2003. His predecessor, Democratic Governor Gray Davis, (governor for four years), was attacked by Schwarznegger because of the state’s fiscal crisis, which was actually caused by Grey Davis’ predecessor, Republican Governor Pete Wilson, (governor for eight years), who deregulated the energy industry for Enron, so they could raise electric rates far above what they would have been with regulation. You’ll recall the Enron energy traders caught on tape, laughing at the “little old ladies” who couldn’t pay their electric bills; and the companies who were shut down by rolling blackouts, which occurred for no other reason, than that the Enron traders told the power companies to do so, to drive up electric rates. Or laughing about a forest fire that had shut down a major electric transmission line crowing “Burn, Baby, Burn, that’s a beautiful thing!” (Do you get where Palin got the “Drill, Baby, Drill” slogan from? It's the same theme - they don't care who they hurt, to get what they want.) Or gloating about how Ken Lay was stealing from California.
"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."
"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.
"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.
The Bush Justice Department tried to prevent public release of the tapes.
This started in 2000, which conveniently occurred one year after Gray Davis was sworn into office. Pete Wilson, who created the energy crisis, and therefore California’s financial woes, was Schwarznegger’s Co-chair for his Campaign and leading sponsor. He was also Schwarznegger’s surrogate, and not only spoke for him publicly, but hired members of his old team to fill those roles for Schwarznegger.
Gov. Schwarznegger’s budget problems far outweigh those of his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, whom he ousted BECAUSE of the budget problems in 2003, caused largely because of Enron’s energy gouging in 2000-2001. Democratic Gov. Gray Davis’ deficit numbers ranged from $21 Billion to $38 Billion. But in August, 2003, Governor Davis signed the final 2003-2004 budget into law, which, from reduced spending and cost savings, eliminated $13.7 Billion from the deficit; $3.9 Billion in savings was achieved by elimination of the VLF backfill to local governments, restoring it to its 1998 level; $10.7 Billion was acquired by deficit financing through the issuance of bonds; $4.5 Billion from revenues; $4.4 Billion from internal borrowing and fund shifts; $2.3 Billion from other borrowing activities, including the sale of bonds from the national settlement between states and the tobacco industry and pension obligation bonds. As enacted, this would provide a reserve of $1.4 Billion, and face a budget shortfall of $8 Billion for 2004-05. Governor Schwarznegger’s legacy to Californians is an ongoing $20 Billion deficit for years to come, even AFTER closing a $41-42 Billion budget deficit.
Jeff Randle, the Senior Advisor (since 2007), to Republican Meg Whitman, who is running for Governor of California, ran both of Governor Pete Wilson’s campaigns, and both of Governor Arnold Schwarznegger’s campaigns.
Meg Whitman, you may recall, was CEO of eBay, and joined with Carly Fiorina, (who is running for the Senate seat currently held by Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer), former CEO of HP (Hewlett Packard), (who justified sending jobs overseas, by making her infamous statement “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.” She’s representing Republicans who believe that God gave Americans the right to do anything, and acquire anything they want regardless of how they do it! I guess that doesn’t include jobs for working people. She did such a terrible job at HP that she was fired. She engineered the merger with Compaq. After her departure, HP stock soared. She was given $21 million to leave immediately.) Both lauded John McCain’s economic plan, which was largely written by former Senator Republican Phil Gramm, who spearheaded the successful (largely Republican), effort to eliminate Government regulations over the banking and insurance industries, which led to the near worldwide economic collapse, and also was involved in setting up illegal tax shelters by hiding tax cheaters’ money in foreign bank accounts. There are 52,000 suspected U.S. tax cheats who hold accounts with UBS. The U.S. Government had negotiated to have UBS turn over names of 4,450 of them, but the Swiss government has recently ruled that it violates their secrecy laws. (Sen. Gramm was the co-director of UBS in the United States. UBS is a foreign Swiss-owned banking entity, which somehow got help during the Bush Administration, to get rid of some of their toxic assets. In addition, UBS got money, $5 Billion worth, indirectly from the TARP funding, through AIG as an AIG “counterparty”.) The guys that create the mess, keep claiming that they'll fix it, and time after time, they con their way back into office, BECAUSE THE VOTERS AREN'T PAYING ATTENTION. Pay attention. Get your friends and neighbors and relatives to pay attention. Your future - your families' future - your children's and grandchildren's futures depend on it. Republicans Are Now Claiming That We Can't Raise Taxes During A Recession, That We Should Be Lowering Taxes But, historically, taxes are lowered when the economy is GOOD, because tax receipts are higher than needed. But when the economy is BAD, taxes have historically been raised on those who can afford to pay them, so that governments can make up for the losses in tax revenue, and continue to pay for desparately needed services which, if cut, would end up costing our community MORE in the long run. Republicans either haven't learned that fact, or they are choosing to IGNORE that fact because of their refusal to deviate from an ideology. Former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan, learned that lesson, TOO LATE - two years after he retired, when he had to reassess his beliefs, after being called before Congress, and admitted that after forty years, his beliefs were WRONG, and they had contributed to the near collapse of our global economy. During the recession of the 1990's, 44 states had raised taxes by a significant margin (of at least 1%). In the recession of 2001, 30 states did so. These actions increased annual revenue collections by tens of billions of dollars. (States often go in the opposite direction during periods of strong economic growth: 36 states cut taxes from 1994 to 2001.) Contrary to what some consider common wisdom, a tax increase can be good policy during a recession. Tax increases are a better option than deep spending cuts — better both for families already suffering due to the recession and for state economies. Tax increases can be designed in such a way that they impose relatively little or no costs on the most vulnerable families; this can be done, for example, by targeting the increase on households with the highest incomes or on profitable corporations. Moreover, as the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Peter Orszag (among others) have noted, tax increases take less money out of the economy than spending cuts. One major factor that is reducing, though not eliminating, the need for tax increases in this recession is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Enacted in February 2009, it provides substantial money for state governments that includes roughly $140 billion to help alleviate budget shortfalls through funding for education, health care, and other government services. New York, for instance, scaled back the size of a proposed tax increase package by about $1.3 billion after the ARRA funding was announced. Tax Increases in the Current RecessionSo far this year, at least 30 states have enacted tax increases, and (as of July 8) another seven are considering such measures. [1] (See Figure 1.) State tax increases began with the recession’s onset in late 2007, in order to preserve education, health care, and other services in the face of flattening or declining revenues. At least 10 states enacted tax and revenue measures in late 2007 or 2008. These included major revenue packages in Maryland, Michigan, and New York, and somewhat narrower measures in Alabama, California, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Many of those states have enacted or are considering further measures in 2009, reflecting the worsening of the recession. 30 States have already raised taxes in response to the current economic crisis, while 44 states, plus the District of Columbia, have cut vital services. Wisconsin has announced hiring freezes and furloughs, as well as cuts in educational funding and financial aid, as well as cuts in Medicaid and CHIP. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that these cuts are having a significant direct impact on employment. The total number of people employed by state and local governments has fallen by 151,000 since August 2008, at a time when the need for the services produced by those governments has increased. These employment numbers are in addition to other measures such as furloughs and cuts to benefits and wages that also reduce workers’ purchasing power and thereby undermine the ability of the national economy to recover. 29 states faced a combined budget shortfall of at least $48 Billion in 2009. In total, 48 states have addressed or are still facing shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2010, totalling $194 Billion, or 28 percent of state budgets - the largest gaps on record. The last recession which lasted between 2002 and 2005, cost $240 Billion to get out of. This one is projected to cost over $600 Billion to get out of. Tax increases have another advantage over spending cuts: they are often better for a state’s economy. During recent deliberations in New York over how to close a growing budget gap, Governor Paterson and the legislature received a letter from 120 economists in the state. Citing “economic theory and historical experience,” the letter observed that “raising taxes during a downturn — particularly taxes that affect only higher-income families — is generally better for a state’s economy, and better for its citizens, than sharp budget cuts.” The letter went on: “The reasons are simple. Almost every dollar that states and localities spend on aid for the needy, salaries of public employees, and other vital services enters the local economy immediately. So if states cut their spending in these areas, overall demand suffers at a time when demand is already too low and support services are most needed. “The alternative — raising taxes — also reduces spending, but by less than budget cuts of comparable size. And by targeting these taxes appropriately, their negative effects can be minimized. For example, high-income households typically spend only a fraction of their income and save the rest. As a result, each $1 increase on taxes on high-income households will reduce their spending by much less than $1.” [5] The letter echoed the conclusions of a paper written during the last recession by Columbia University professor and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and Peter Orszag, now director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, asserting that spending cuts can be more harmful for a state’s economy in a recession than tax increases.[6] States that had enacted significant tax increases (more than 1 percent of revenues) in the 2002-04 period saw growth rates in personal income, employment, and the median wage from 2004 to 2007 that closely matched national averages. Furthermore, a number of states that enacted significant tax increases during the early 2000s subsequently experienced above-average growth in these key economic indicators. On the other hand, a number of states that did not raise taxes, or cut them, during the last recession subsequently saw slower-than-average economic growth. Among them are Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. Those states’ decision to avoid tax increases (and, in some cases, to enact large cuts in services) failed to protect them from below-average growth in both personal income and employment during the subsequent period. In short, neither economic theory nor experience supports the idea that states should shy away from raising taxes in a recession for fear of harming their economic performance. Republicans are constantly railing about Social Security, Medicare and other Domestic programs, and their cost to taxpayers and demanding that these costs be controlled or eliminated.
But the truth about these costs is quite different than what Republicans would have you believe. According to a recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities over the period of 2001-2008, Defense is a much larger and faster growing segment of the budget, while Domestic Appropriations have shrunk. Revised March 6, 2008 Key Findings- There has been no rapid rise in funding for domestic discretionary programs in recent years; in fact these programs have shrunk both as a share of the budget and as a share of the economy.
- In contrast, funding for defense and related programs has exploded. Since 2001, it has jumped at an annual average rate of 8 percent, after adjusting for inflation and population — four times faster than the average rate of growth for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (2 percent), and 27 times faster than the average rate for growth for domestic discretionary programs (0.3 percent).
- Funding for defense and related programs has shot up by 2 percent of GDP in just seven years. It is expected to take more than two decades for Social Security to grow by 2 percent of GDP.
- Even when costs for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the “global war on terror” are excluded, funding for the regular defense budget has risen at a stunning rate that dwarfs the growth rates for all parts of the domestic budget.
- The combined effect of the Administration’s tax cuts and its defense spending increases (including the war) has been a budget deterioration equal to 3.3 percent of GDP since 2001.
- By contrast, increases in costs for all domestic programs combined have cost a little less than 0.6 percent of GDP.
Table 1:
Domestic Discretionary Funding Is a Shrinking Share of Total Program Costs | Share of Total | 2001 | 2008 | Change | Defense & security | 21.7% | 29.2% | +7.5% | Social Security, Medicare/caid | 45.9% | 43.5% | -2.4% | Other mandatory programs | 14.0% | 12.5% | -1.4% | Domestic discretionary | 18.4% | 14.7% | -3.7% | Total program costs | 100% | 100% | 0.0% | Notes: Figures may not add due to rounding. The defense/security figures also include veterans, homeland security, and international affairs. Medicare is net of premiums. Figures for 2008 are CBO’s January estimate plus supplemental discretionary funding requested by President Bush. Totals exclude net interest. |
Table 2:
Domestic Discretionary Funding Has Been Growing More Slowly Than Any Other Set of Programs (Average annual rate of growth, from 2001 through 2008) | | nominal | real | real per person | Defense & security | 12.0% | 9.1% | 8.1% | Social Security, Medicare/caid | 6.5% | 3.8% | 2.8% | Other mandatory programs | 5.7% | 3.0% | 2.0% | Domestic discretionary | 4.0% | 1.3% | 0.3% | Average, all program costs | 7.3% | 4.6% | 3.6% | See Notes, Table 1. |
What Are the Major Domestic Discretionary Programs?The largest domestic discretionary programs (in order of size) are: education, highways and other ground transportation, housing assistance, biomedical research, federal law enforcement, public health services, air traffic and related transportation, and space flight. Table 3 shows the four areas of the budget as a share of the economy — i.e., as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, which is the broadest measure of the size of the economy. This measure is the best way to determine the affordability of various programs. Absent any changes in tax law, revenues generally grow at about the same rate as the economy (or slightly faster). Therefore, if programs also are growing only as fast as the economy — i.e., staying constant as a share of GDP — their growth does not put any upward pressure on revenues. Table 3:
Domestic Discretionary Funding is a Shrinking Percentage of the Economy (% of GDP) | | 2001 | 2008 | Change | Defense & security | 3.6% | 5.6% | +2.0% | Social Security, Medicare/caid | 7.7% | 8.4% | +0.7% | Other mandatory programs | 2.3% | 2.4% | +0.1% | Domestic discretionary | 3.1% | 2.8% | -0.2% | Total program costs | 16.7% | 19.3% | +2.6% | Addendum, revenues | 19.8% | 18.5% | -1.3% | See Notes, Table 1. |
As Table 3 shows, while non-interest expenditures as a whole have grown noticeably faster than the economy, domestic discretionary programs have grown more slowly than the economy (and thus have shrunk as a share of GDP). From this perspective, domestic discretionary programs have not contributed to the return of deficits. In contrast, funding for defense and related programs has been growing at an extraordinary rate. Funding for these programs has shot up by 2 percent of GDP in just seven years. To put this in perspective, it is expected to take more than two decades, from 2010 to the mid-2030s, for Social Security to grow by two percent of GDP. Two other categories each accounted for about one-tenth of federal spending: - Safety net programs: About 11 percent of the federal budget in 2008, or $313 billion, supported programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship.
These programs include: the refundable portion of the earned-income and child tax credits, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals or households, including Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including food stamps, school meals, low-income housing assistance, child-care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children. A Center analysis shows that such programs lifted approximately 15 million Americans out of poverty in 2005 and reduced the depth of poverty for another 29 million people. - Interest on the national debt: The federal government must make regular interest payments on the money it has borrowed to finance past deficits — that is, on the national debt, which reached $5.8 trillion by the end of fiscal 2008. In 2008, these interest payments (net of some interest income) claimed $253 billion, or a little more than 8 percent of the budget.
Tremendous Increases in Parts of the Defense Budget Unrelated to Iraq and AfghanistanIt is widely understood that funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, provided through “emergency” and supplemental appropriations, has contributed to the large increase in defense and security spending.[3] What is less well understood is that a large amount of that increase is the result of extremely rapid growth in regular defense funding that is unrelated to Iraq, Afghanistan, or what the Administration terms the “global war on terror.” Ongoing and routine funding for the Pentagon has increased remarkably since 2001. Even excluding the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war on terror, funding for defense and related programs has grown at an average annual rate of 4.8 percent per year since 2001, after adjusting for inflation — substantially faster than the growth in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.[4] 
Indeed, over the period from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2008, defense and other security funding unrelated to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global war on terror has risen a cumulative 39 percent — or $170 billion — after adjusting for inflation. This increase would reach 46 percent, or $202 billion, by 2009 under the President’s budget. (The regular budget for these programs was $439 billion in 2001, in 2008 dollars. The Administration has requested $642 billion for 2009.) (This is referring to President Bush's Administration.) 2009 Budget Outcomes Were Highly UnusualDue to one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression – and the policies enacted to combat it – 2009 tax and spending levels diverged sharply from recent patterns. Preliminary data show that federal revenues plunged to less than 15 percent of GDP in 2009, the lowest level in decades. The efforts to prevent collapse of the financial system and to deal with the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the automatic expansion of programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps (which always grow during economic downturns to meet rising need), and spending from the February 2009 stimulus package together pushed federal outlays to almost 25 percent of GDP. The deficit reached record levels. Under current policies, federal spending and revenues will gradually return to more normal levels that resemble fiscal year 2008. It will take the economy several years to fully recover, and during that time federal revenues and expenditures will continue to differ from historical experience. As the graph shows, the remaining 19 percent of federal spending goes to support a wide variety of other public services. These include providing health care and other benefits to veterans and retirement benefits to retired federal employees, assuring safe food and drugs, protecting the environment, and investing in education, scientific and medical research, and basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and airports. A very small slice of this remaining 19 percent — about 1 percent of the total budget — goes for non-security programs that operate internationally, including programs that provide humanitarian aid. While critics often decry “government spending,” it is important to look behind the rhetoric and determine whether the actual public services that government provides are valuable. To the extent that such services are worth paying for, the only way to do so is ultimately with tax revenue. Consequently, when thinking about the costs that taxes impose, it is essential to balance those costs against the benefits the nation receives from public services. Taxes and the Iraq War The following documents were taken from the National Priorities Project. www.nationalpriorities.org
You can download the original documents from that site (“Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?”, and “President’s Budget FY 2009 and Iraq War: State Impact”).
You can also get more specific details for how much your Congressional District or Municipality will be paying, by drilling down from their webpage at:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/publications/local_cost_of_the_iraq_war_through_fy2008Actual debt accrued for Wisconsin’s share of the Iraq War costs through 2007 can be found at: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/cms/publications/local_cost_of_the_iraq_war_through_fy2007 Wisconsin’s share of the debt is already at $8.3 Billion (through the end of 2007) and is expected to increase by $1.3 Billion for 2008 and an additional $2.2 Billion for 2009 for a total of $11.9 Billion by the end of 2009. That’s more than four times the debt that Wisconsinites were saddled with after 16 years of Republican governance in the State; after Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum left office. (Tommy Thompson was Governor for four terms, with Scott McCallum the Lieutenant Governor from 1986-2001. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Thompson to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, making McCallum Governor of Wisconsin, finishing out Tommy Thompson's last term. McCallum was defeated in the 2002 election by Democrat Jim Doyle.)
The Federal Government’s debt, approved by Congress, is responsible for this unchecked spending, which has been largely unaccounted for under the Bush Administration, (primarily under Republican control, during Bush’s first six years in office). It has continued since then because of the inability of the Democratic simple majority in Congress to override Bush’s veto.
The 5th Congressional District of Wisconsin's share of the Iraq War Debt is $1.4 Billion approved as of 2007. In addition to these excessive costs, in spite of claims that jobs have been created as a result of the war, a new report based on government data released at the end of 2007 for 2005 expenditures, shows that much of the spending never makes it back to the states. In terms of tax dollars returned to the states, Wisconsin ranked 41st, only getting $0.44 back for every dollar that was paid to the Federal Government. (In the form of military procurement contracts, salaries and wages, and grants.). It showed that at least 9% of the $495.3 Billion spent in military outlays for 2005 left the U.S. In addition to the significant portion of military spending leaving the U.S., the economic impact of military spending that goes to local areas is not as effective at creating jobs as other types of spending. A new report by the Political Economy Research Institute shows that public spending on education creates more jobs that are higher paying than the same amount of money spent on the military. Public spending on other areas such as health care and energy efficiency also create more jobs than the equivalent amount spent on the military, though the jobs have lower pay and benefits. Nevertheless, the overall economic impact in terms of wages and benefits is much higher. Moreoever, investing in renewable energy and conservation, health care and education can have considerable impact on technological developments, workforce skills and infrastructure, all of which will support further economic growth and development. Why Your Taxes Are Too High Tax Avoidance by Mega Corporations Means Higher Taxes for Wisconsin Citizens
The Best Research in Wisconsin: Institute for Wisconsin's Future
The Institute for Wisconsin's Future says this about itself:
The Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF) was established in1994 to help citizens fight for state laws that maximize every individual’s opportunity to achieve educational, economic and personal success.
The Institute for Wisconsin’s Future is a non-profit organization working for:
■ Excellent schools. Schools need adequate funding so all children have qualified teachers, small classes, up-to-date books and technology, safe buildings and necessary resources for children who live in poverty, have disabilities or do not speak English.
■ Quality public services paid for by a tax system that is fair to working families. Wisconsin needs sufficient revenue to preserve a public sector capable of meeting diverse needs. The tax responsibility of this should be shared equitably by all individuals and businesses. IWF plays a vital role in strengthening citizen power with information, training and public action.
■ Getting the word out: IWF brings the facts to thousands of people each year in communities across the state through presentations, newsletters and the media.
■ Organizing for change: IWF brings citizens and organizations together to press for effective and compassionate policies. Alliances include:
The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES): Over 150 and growing school districts and organizations united around school funding reform.
The Alliance to Protect the Public Good: A network of organizations, congregations, labor unions and individuals working to protect public structures and services in local communities and at the state level.
They are all of this, but they do so much more! As a groundbreaking research organization, they have released the results of their excellent work and the results are stunning!
Consider this from their newsletter:
April 15: Wisconsinites pay their state income tax and the corporations' too. You paid your state income tax. Wouldn't it be nice if corporate Wisconsin did too? Chances are you paid more than Microsoft, McDonald's, Pepsi, Sears, Budget Rent-Car, Kimberly Clark (the company to which Wisconsin's 5th CD Representative, F. James Sensenbrenner is an heir to the fortune of), Boston Market, Frito-Lay, K mart, Victoria's Secret and Stokely-Van Camp. In fact, you paid more than all of them put together. For the last year of information available (2005), they paid zero (0) income tax. Big corporations avoid over $500 million in state income tax every year. They skip taxes by using loopholes that allow them to move their profits to non-tax states. That means our families and small businesses cover the cost of the roads, police, fire protection and other services these mega-corporations rely on. Do you think it's about time to close the loopholes or should we just keep paying their public service bills?
See Revenue Gap: An analysis of corporate tax avoidance at http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org/ Check out this video and this report from one year ago. It doesn't get any clearer than this. The legislature and the governor have some work to do. If the mega corporations in Wisconsin were just paying the national average for their share of their taxes, (Wisconsin would collect another $1.3 Billion in taxes, part of which would be collected on the combined earnings of $21.873 Billion by only seven of these mega corporations who are currently paying $0 in taxes. As a result, of their not paying their share of the taxes, the poor and the middle tax income earners pay a higher percentage of taxes on their income than any other group in Wisconsin.) Enough of tax cuts for the rich and then blaming the service providers (teachers, police and fire, transportation, etc) for not having the resources to do their jobs!
Our corporate environment is basically stealing from us and our children and enough is enough!
A friend of mine calls this the "starving the beast" philosophy of government. Cut all the funding out and make the service providers, the poor and the needy fight for the scraps that are left.
There are a few “good” citizens, NML, Coca Cola, Kraft Foods even Exxon Mobil all paid some taxes, although as a portion of their income it was minimal.
We can fix this. A few bills in the legislature and property taxes would plummet and corporations would pay their fair share. They do business here, they take our money, they own property in Wisconsin, they employ hundreds of thousands between them all and yet use shady loopholes and lack of accountability to hide their income and avoid paying taxes.
Other states have closed those loopholes and these companies do business in those states as well. It's time Wisconsinites take a closer look at WHY there's no money for schools and services and WHY our property and income tax burden is so high on us as individuals instead of falling into the false choices of raising taxes or cutting services.
The bottom line is: we don't lose companies in Wisconsin because the companies have to pay taxes. We lose companies because the executives can't find a good enough school system for their children, their property taxes are too high and the workforce is so poorly educated.
We could lower taxes and increase and/or fully fund services if the legislature had the will and the mandate from the people to do so...
For all those conservatives out there, really comb this website. Take a serious look at the facts and while you're doing so don't tell me all the businesses will leave Wisconsin if we force them to pay the taxes they rightfully owe the state.
I cannot for the life of me believe that Wal Mart, Exxon Mobil or Kohl's Dept Stores will close their stores in Wisconsin and stop doing business here because they have to pay their taxes. Taxes don't stop them from opening stores in other states, and the bottom line is that the small percentage they would pay of their income to be good citizens is Wisconsin is well worth the gross profits they make here.
In other words the false notion that WE need to pay the burden of all the services instead of strengthening and enforcing our tax laws is just that... a false notion.
Thanks to IWF for the work they are doing, we now know the facts and the results of conservative "starving the beast" legislation in the 1980's and 1990's.
Now it's time to rebalance the system so everyone pays their fair share.
(Thanks to Renee Crawford, Associate Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, for this article.)
On a Related Issue
Healthcare is obviously a big issue these days, with the cost of healthcare and health insurance skyrocketing out of control. Democrats and Republicans have different plans to deal with them. Democrats favor a universal, single payer healthcare plan which the Federal Government pays for from the taxes they collect from you. The idea is that with the leverage they get from the large volume of citizens represented, they can drive the prices down and provide healthcare to everyone. Larger sums of money equal larger contracts with the healthcare insurance companies, so they can offer bigger discounts. They can then also require the same high level of coverage for everyone under the plan.
The concept works, anyone with healthcare coverage should be aware of the difference in coverage they get if they work for a small company versus a large company with much more influence in negotiating better coverage from the companies attempting to sell them a policy.
It is a very much similar concept to a buying club, which buys high volumes of products at a huge discount and then passes those savings along to the club members. That concept made Wal-mart / Sam’s Club one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet, and Sam Walton’s heirs some of the wealthiest people in the United States and the world, even after providing low prices (sometimes) to their customers. (But not proper healthcare to their employees.)
Federal Government employees enjoy 100% Healthcare coverage, paid for by you the taxpayer. Those covered under this policy, including all of our Federal elected politicians, except those few who opt out of the coverage, have their healthcare expenses paid for at 100%, with no payments out of pocket. Many of the Republican politicians, who benefit from this system, call this socialist and welfare, but they still willingly accept this as part of their benefits package, while at the same time denying you the taxpayer, the opportunity to benefit from the exact same program.
Representative Sensenbrenner touts the HSA or Health Savings Account as the answer to high insurance costs. The Health Savings Accounts require individuals to save money into these accounts and save up for your healthcare costs, like you would for an education fund, but if you don’t have much of an income to begin with, or you haven’t worked for very long to put much into the account, or if you or someone in your family is struck with a devastating illness or injury, once your account is depleted, you are out of luck.
Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President, has offered a market-based reform which would eliminate the tax exemption for employees receiving health care from their employers and substitute a tax credit for them to purchase individual health insurance. This would make them choose to either take themselves out of a group plan and any benefits from group purchasing, in order to avoid additional taxes; or stay in the group plan and pay more taxes.
John Torinus, Chairman of Serigraph, Inc. of West Bend recently wrote a column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Sunday May 11, 2008 page 3D in the Business section), where he complained about both the Democratic and Republican candidates approaches, while himself leaning toward a market based solution that depends upon consumer choices versus government fixes.
That might make sense if people actually had any real choices for healthcare rather than being forced into the few choices available to them based on where and for whom they work. It would make even better sense if people actually understood the legalese that camouflages what they actually receive under their policies.
But for most people, they don’t have the finances available to them to get the best coverage, or don’t work for a company that provides them that either. Most employees try to get the most coverage for the least out of pocket expenses, and least payments out of their paycheck, with little thought to the consequences if they are young and healthy and suddenly take sick. While many corporate health plans are consumer driven, they often don’t provide employees with the healthcare they need when disaster strikes. And most company provided health insurance policies for employees have included in them, a clause which allows them to recover any money that they spent to provide healthcare to them if the recipient is successful in suing and collecting damages from another party.
That is why the combined bargaining of many citizens offers the best healthcare coverage at the lowest cost; with the least chance of a healthcare insurer, or employer denying you coverage, refusing you service, or taking away damages you have collected from a third party.
But Torinus goes on to claim that the three candidates are not talking values. He claims that they only talk about who pays for the service. He claims that the current pricing system which bills for procedure-by-procedure and line item-by-line item is flawed and that this “fragmented approach leads to over-utilization as doctors order multiple procedures, each of which elicits a separate payment, and to poor quality.”
While it is true that billing by procedure and by line item has demonstrated duplication and excessive costs, it is also true that doctors and hospitals often use excessive pricing in procedures and line items to make up for the fact that insurance companies have negotiated down payments for procedures and line-items so that they only pay a set limit or certain percentage of what is billed.
He cites the fact that the same procedure can be priced two to three times higher from the lowest to the highest. But the reason for the pricing difference has to do more with whether or not you have health insurance, or whether or not you have a premium policy, versus a standard one. Recent investigations in this area have shown that if you have no insurance or have a policy which does not cover as much, that you will pay two to three times as much as someone with a premium policy, and not get as much or at as high a level of care.
If you want to eliminate the disparity in what is being paid for the same procedure by different people, you need to eliminate the ability of insurance companies to negotiate pricing for different groups based on different policies or coverage, and put them all under the same program to keep the pricing uniform.
The bottom line is that most corporations don’t want to have employer funded healthcare because they have to cover the costs of it, and the costs are out of control. But the costs of healthcare are going up, just like education is going up, because fewer Americans are able to use facilities which have set expenses. If more people used the facilities that were available to them, the costs would be spread out and each individual would be paying less, while the facilities would be taking in substantially more in total. If you don’t believe that, try going to a hospital or school where the economy has hit people the hardest, you’ll see that either the facilities are showing excessive wear and tear, or that they aren’t being used to their best advantage.
But the biggest reason that health and education costs are skyrocketing for individuals, is because the Federal Government is spending far less on those items and spending far more on the War in Iraq, or in providing wealthy individuals and corporations huge tax breaks. State Governments have also spent a great deal of money in wooing corporations to locate in their communities and offered them tax advantages which are unavailable to the average citizen. In Wisconsin, corporate income tax as a share of general fund revenue had declined from a high of around 11% in 1979, to a low of around 5.0% in 2002, with the decreases primarily occurring between 1987 and 2002, when Republican Governors, Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum were running the state - into the ground. And as a result, the state has had less available in its budget to subsidize schools and hospitals, which in turn force the schools and hospitals to bill more to the paying customers. Tommy Thompson's last gift to the rich, was to give them tax rebates, which eliminated the $500 million plus that the State of Wisconsin held after paying outstanding debts. That also eliminated the "Rainy Day" fund, which was supposed to cover unexpected expenses in times when the economy wasn't able to raise the funds necessary to run the government. Because those funds were eliminated when the economy was doing well, (under President Clinton), when the economy tanked, (under Dubya), there was nothing available to pay for expenses that started to pile up because the Federal Government wasn't providing funding to the States, after Dubya's tax cuts to the billionaires. million in state bonds issued through negotiated agreements."When Bear Stearns & Co. landed a no-bid contract to underwrite a $147 million stadium bond issue for Miller Park - collecting more than $1.8 million in fees - it prompted criticism of ties between the securities firm and the Thompson administration. Among the firm's executives were Nicholas Hurtgen, a top aide and fund raising advisor to Gov. Tommy Thompson who was hired in 1995 to work for Bear Stearns public finance department in Chicago. Peter Fox, a Bear Stearns executive, was also a key Thompson fund-raiser in Chicago. In 1997, concerns about potential tampering on no-bid state bond issues prompted an audit by the Legislative Audit Bureau. State Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, requested the audit after reports linked former Thompson Secretary of Administration James Klauser and campaign contributions from Wall Street bond firms doing business with the state. "To date, 15 governments have converted all or portions of their tobacco settlements. New York City was the first to do so, securitizing $709 million to pay for capital school projects. South Carolina has done the largest deal to date, $934 million, which would be passed by Wisconsin's $1.3 billion plan. Not all the states are expected to convert their settlements, however. In Colorado, for example, the Legislature rejected a proposal to move forward with a securitization." (Tobacco deal's next winner. Hand-picked broker to get $12M fee. By Mike Ivey, The Capital Times (Madison WI), 2001 June 7.) Hurtgen, who faces federal charges in Illinois over hospital kickbacks, is the brother-in-law of Philip Morris lobbyist Phil Prange, whose wife, Alison, is Wisconsin government relations director for the American Cancer Society. You may also recall that Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, who is again candidate for Wisconsin Governor, also has his ties to Bear Stearns. Fighting Bob reported in July of 2004: July 15, 2004
Dog ate my homework
Milwaukee County executive and would-be governor Scott Walker had to refer to the 3rd grader's excuse about the dog when asked to provide paperwork to justify selecting Republican Party-favorite Bear Stearns & Co. for county bonding work. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked for the records under Wisconsin's open records law.
The $100 million bond refinancing exceeded the maximum fee approved. When MJS reporter Dave Umhoefer asked members of the Walker administration about the details, no one could remember. Yah, sure Ole.
Who is behind the deal? Ah, Tommy Thompson's chief corporate fundraiser Nick Hurtgen, who also raised $25,000 for Walker in Chicago. Hurtgen was the subject of a recent Chicago Sun Times story about shake-downs in Chicago, and the focus of a 1997 MJS four-part series on the influence of money in the Thompson administration.
Hurtgen resigned Friday from Bear Stearns. Oops! Forgot to mention. Linda Seemeyer, the person in charge for Walker, is a long-time friend of Hurtgen's and a co-worker with him in Tommy's Department of Administration. "Seemeyer and Walker had the final say on which firm was recommended."
Some Republican talking heads are claiming that because the deficit in Wisconsin is higher today than it was when McCallum was in office, that we would have been better off had McCallum stayed in office. Their logic is significantly flawed. First, the deficit under Doyle is less than what it was under McCallum (about a $2 Billion estimated structural deficit for the 2011-2013 biennium, about half of what it was under McCallum, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau in a report released on July 7, 2009). Second, the deficit that the Republicans had created, was after eight years of some of the most economic prosperity, and highest total tax receipts that this country has ever seen (under Clinton). The deficit that Republicans were largely responsible for in the State of Wisconsin - they held control of the State Senate until 2006, and held control of the State Assembly until 2008; and responsible for with Dubya's tax cuts for the wealthy, and the outsourcing of millions of jobs, (while the Republican Congress gave those businesses that outsourced those jobs millions in tax breaks), created a lack of Federal funds coming back to the states. That is what is responsible for most of the states in the entire country facing record deficits. Again, that was before President Barack Obama took office. The state's total tax share from corporate income tax has risen since 2002 to about 7.1%, but is still far below what it was almost three decades ago.
In Wisconsin from 1996 to 2006, total personal income tax rose 47%, sales taxes rose 52% and homeowner property tax grew 62%. In contrast, corporate income taxes grew only 23%. Keep in mind that the first three taxes are borne primarily by individuals. In addition, between 1978 and 2007 corporate income taxes, based in 2007 dollars dropped, even though national corporate profits more than doubled during that same time period. Personal income on the other hand, during that same time period, in 2007 dollars, has actually stayed about the same or dropped.
In a recent article in State Tax Notes titled “”State Corporate Tax Leakage: $14.5 Billion in 2006” by Martin A. Sullivan in the November 26, 2007 edition, he estimates “state corporate income tax losses due to loop holes and other legal tax avoidance mechanisms on a state-by-state basis…in Wisconsin...in 2006 was $643 million. For the period 1999-2006, it is estimated that Wisconsin’s total corporate tax leakage was $1.828 billion.”
(In other words, in one year, 2007, the Corporate Tax Leakage, exceeded the previous seven years combined, by more than SEVEN TIMES. Recall also that the Wisconsin State Legislature had been controlled by Republicans until 2008, when Democrats finally won control of both houses.) And in a recent study based on information available and gathered up to the end of 2007, “Wisconsin’s Revenue Gap – An Analysis of Corporate Tax Avoidance” put out by the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future at www.wisconsinsfuture.org, they noted that two thirds of Wisconsin Corporations pay ZERO in Corporate Income Taxes. (Their source was the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.) And listed on Table 3, page 12, they show that Serigraph paid NOTHING in Wisconsin Corporate Income Taxes for 2003 and 2004. The CEO of Serigraph, John Torinus, regularly writes columns supporting Republican policies and candidates. No surprise there.
If we’re talking values here, the real value should be that everyone should be paying their fair share of the taxes, so that some aren’t paying any taxes while others are paying a higher share than they should be. When that happens, programs that need government funding won’t be going begging or having to raise their prices to levels that few can afford.
Don’t you think that that should be the first step?
McCain's rhetoric on protecting the Great Lakes are just that. His voting record proves it. Our Great Lakes are too important to be trusted to a McCain Presidency. Perhaps McCain didn't bother to explain that paying to protect the Great Lakes is what he is referring to when he is against "pork barrel projects"?
SENATOR JAUCH: MCCAIN RECORD DOESN’T BACK UP RHETORIC ON GREAT LAKES COMPACT -- UNLIKE MCCAIN, OBAMA HAS VOTED CONSISTENTLY TO PRESERVE THE GREAT LAKES - 7/30/2008
MADISON – With Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle testifying today at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Great Lakes Compact, Wisconsin State Senator Bob Jauch – who represents the entire Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Superior and helped craft the legislation – praised Governor Doyle’s work on the issue, but said Wisconsin also needs a President who will fight to preserve the Great Lakes. While both candidates have vocalized support for the bill, only U.S. Senator Barack Obama has backed up his words with a consistent record of support for Great Lakes preservation.
“Governor Doyle, Senator Feingold, and so many of our dedicated public servants have worked tirelessly to preserve the Great Lakes, and for that, the people of Wisconsin owe them our thanks,” Senator Jauch said. “But to truly ensure the preservation of the Great Lakes, we also need a steadfast ally in the White House. Barack Obama will be that ally.”
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) presided over today’s hearing on the interstate compact. If passed by Congress, the bill would promote water conservation and prevent waters from being diverted to different regions – threats that have already caused damage to the Great Lakes.
Barack Obama has been a consistent advocate for preservation of the Great Lakes region, including co-sponsoring two bills to help prevent the spread of invasive species. In contrast, Senator John McCain has repeatedly opposed measures to preserve the Great Lakes, including cleanup initiatives and projects to prevent sediment pollution. In addition, McCain’s newfound support of offshore drilling for natural gas raises questions about whether the Great Lakes would be exposed to irreparable damage.
“It’s not enough for Senator McCain to say he supports the Great Lakes as a candidate, when his public record doesn’t match those words,” Senator Jauch said. “Time and again, John McCain’s record has been harmful to the Great Lakes, rather than voting to prevent pollution and ecological damage. His record certainly suggests that he was not looking out for the good of the region until he was a candidate and that the Great Lakes would not be a priority for him as President.”
-30-
BACKGROUND ON SENATOR MCCAIN’S INCONSISTENT RECORD OF SUPPORT FOR GREAT LAKES PRESERVATION:
MCCAIN OPPOSED IMPORTANT GREAT LAKES PROJECTS
McCain Opposed Legislation That Included Funding To Prevent Invasive Species In The Great Lakes
2007: McCain Strongly Opposed The WRDA of 2007. “Mr. President, I would like to express my strong opposition to the Conference Report on the Water Resources Development Act of 2007.” [Senator John McCain Press Release on the WRDA Conference Report, 9/24/07]
2007: The WRDA Provided Funding To Complete The Asian Carp Barrier Project To Prevent Invasive Species From Reaching The Great Lakes. A press release from Sen. Durbin’s office stated: “The United States Senate today approved the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). The bill includes a provision authored by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) that will authorize the use of federal funds to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to complete the Asian Carp Barrier project. This barrier will prevent the spread of invasive species, including Asian Carp, between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. "The Asian Carp t hreatens both the native fish and natural wildlife of the lake and in turn, the economy of the entire Great Lakes region," said Durbin. "Currently, this invasive species threatens a $4.1 billion sport and commercial fishing industry in the Great Lakes. The bill passed today recognizes the threat of the Asian Carp by authorizing the permanent operation of the barrier system to prevent these harmful fish from entering the waters of the Great Lakes."” [HR 1495, PL 110-114, Vote 406, Passed 79-14,11/8/07, Sen. Dick Durbin Press Release, 5/16/07]
2006: Obama And Durbin Successfully Secured Funding For Temporary Barriers To Prevent Entry Of Invasive Species.
A press release from Sen. Dick Durbin stated: “In June 2006, Durbin and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) worked to successfully secure $400,000 to operate the barriers that prevent invasive species from entering the Great Lakes. Twenty-eight other Great Lakes House Members joined Congresswoman Judy Biggert (R-IL) in sending a letter to House appropriators in support of this effort. The funding was included to pay for the operation of Barrier I, a temporary barrier that keeps the invasive species out of the Illinois River and Lake Michigan by emitting an ele ctric current that deters the carp from passing through.” [Sen. Dick Durbin Press Release, 5/16/07]
Obama Cosponsored Two Bills That Would Have Made The Invasive Species Barrier In the Great Lakes Permanent. Requires the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) to upgrade and make permanent the existing Chicago sanitary and ship canal dispersal barrier in Chicago, Illinois, constructed as a demonstration project to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species in U.S. waterways. Directs the Secretary of the department in which the Coast Guard is operating to construct, at full Federal expense, the Chicago sanitary and ship canal dispersal barrier authorized by the Water Resources Development Act of 1986. [109th S. 770, introduced 4/13/05; 110th S. 791, introduced 3/7/2007]
McCain Opposed Great Lakes Cleanup
McCain Voted Against Great Lakes Cleanup Initiatives. In 1995, McCain voted for the GOP’s Regulatory Reform bill (S 343), which would have delayed efforts to clean up the Great Lakes by requiring rigid risk assessment and cost benefit analysis, and by giving the polluting industries unlimited opportunities to delay the implementation of rules that meet those tests through petitions for review and litigation. Polluting industries would also have been able to have their own scientists on the peer review panels that must approve the regulations. [S 343, Vote 311, 7/18/95; S 343, Vote 315, 7/20/95]
Obama Cosponsored A Bill To Clean Up Contaminated Expanses And Aid Habitat Restoration In The Great Lakes. A press release from Sen. Levin reported: “Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Senator George Voinovich, R-Ohio, co-chairmen of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, today introduced the bipartisan Great Lakes Legacy Act of 2008 to expand on legislation passed six years ago. The bill aims to clean up contaminated expanses in the Great Lakes known as “Areas of Concern” within 10 years…The Great Lakes Legacy Act of 2008 focuses on Areas of Concern in the Gre at Lakes. Forty-three Areas of Concern have been identified in the Great Lakes, 13 of which are in Michigan and four in Ohio. These sites do not meet the water quality goals established by the United States and Canada in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, mainly because of contaminated sediments from historic industrial activity. This contamination results in several detrimental consequences including fish advisories, degradation of fish and wildlife populations, taste and odor problems with drinking water, beach closures, and bird and animal deformities or reproductive problems. The Great Lakes Legacy Act of 2008 would authorize $150 million annually for clean up of the Areas of Concern within 10 years. The legislation gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) greater flexibility to manage funds by allowing the EPA to distribute funds directly to contractors and would provide relief to states from burdensome requirements. Under this bill, eligible projects would be expanded to include habitat restoration.” [110th S. 2994, introduced 5/8/08; Sen. Levin Press Release, 5/8/08]
McCain Opposed Prevention Of Sediment Pollution In The Great Lakes
McCain Opposed, Obama Supported Projects To Prevent Sediment Pollution In The Great Lakes Which Threatens Vegetation, Wildlife And Makes Water Treatment More Expensive. A press release from the Great Lakes Commission stated: “The Great Lakes Basin Program – which gained renewed support in the Farm Bill – is administered by the Great Lakes Commission, with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Basin Program supports improved erosion and sediment control and sound landuse practices through demonstration grants, technical assistance and information/education projects. Grant recipients include conservation districts and other nonfederal units of government, nonprofit organizations and academic institutions in all eight states of the Great Lakes basin. Over the past 17 years, the Basin Program has supported nearly 400 projects and invested almost $12 million in water quality improvement efforts. These projects have prevented an estimated 250,000 tons of sediment and 900,000 pounds of phosphorus from entering the Great Lakes and tributaries. Sediment pollution covers spawning beds, suffocates aquatic vegetation habitat, and increases the cost of treating potable water and maintaining drainage infrastructure. Phosphorus pollution can lead to excess growth of plants and algae and rob lakes and river s of oxygen.” [Great Lakes Commission Press Release, 5/28/08; 110th HR 2419, Passed 79-14: R 37-11; D 40-3 (ND 36-3, SD 4-0); I 2-0]
McCain Opposed Projects To Support Great Lakes Commerce
McCain Opposed Important Projects To Relieve The Dredging Backlog In The Great Lakes Waterway Which Is Necessary For Hundreds Of Millions Of Transported Goods. A press release regarding the Water Resources Development Act of 2008 from Sen. Levin stated: “Great Lakes Navigation and Protection Directs the Army Corps to expedite the operation and maintenance, including dredging, of the Great Lakes commercial navigation channels and infrastructure. This provision aims to address the very serious dredging backlog in the Great Lakes, which has been exacerbated by historic low water levels. The backlog has resulted in ships having to carry reduced loads, freighters getting stuck in channels, and some shipments that have ceased altogether. Every year, hundreds of millions of tons of goods are transported through the Great Lakes waterways, and communities throughout the Great Lakes are economically ti ed to waterborne commerce. Dredging to the needed depths and maintaining other navigational features of the system are critical. Also directs the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, in coordination with the Corps and other federal agencies, to carry out a pilot project to control and prevent further spreading of viral hemorrhagic septicemia in the Great Lakes.” [HR 1495, PL 110-114, Vote 406, Passed 79-14,11/8/07; Sen. Levin Press Release, 11/08/07]
The Case for Impeachment First, consider the fact that the United States Constitution, offers impeachment as the only action available to Congress to take against the Executive Branch or other elected officials in cases of high crimes and misdemeanors. Then consider that the Bush Administrations crimes have been conducted in full and public view of the American people and the world. Congress has repeatedly failed to act on each and every infraction, which in and of themselves, should have warranted impeachment, but when taken in their totality add up to a gross failure to act. That is unacceptable. During the 2005 State DPW Convention, state delegates passed a resolution to impeach George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors. During the 2006 State DPW Convention, state delegates passed a Platform to impeach George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors. During the 2007 State DPW Convention, state delegates passed a resolution to support Senator Russ Feingold's resolution to censure George W. Bush in Congress, and also passed additional resolutions to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney. There were many who were opposed to impeachment proceedings on the premise that those actions would distract from an attempt on the part of Democrats who wanted to pass much needed legislation instead. Regardless of their arguments and positions, the delegates voted repeatedly in three different state DPW Conventions to urge our elected Democratic officials to pursue impeachment procedings against President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, and yet the majority of our elected officials have refused to call for, or take action to move impeachment procedings forward. While I supported the need for much needed legislation, I pointed out to those who opposed impeachment, that President Bush held the veto pen, and that he would prevent the passage of any bills which the Democrats were able to pass in Congress, because Democrats did not have a super majority to overturn a Bush veto. Since then, Bush has used his veto pen to overturn most of the bills that Democrats had fought long and hard to win in Congress. Republicans have used these failures to get these bills passed into law, to spin that Democrats have not used their simple majority to get anything done in Congress. All this, in spite of the fact that Republicans knew all along that Democrats needed some Republicans to vote with them in order to overturn Bush's veto, which they refused to do. This only underscores the need to impeach Bush so that he can do no further damage to our Democracy. And while, some of the support for impeachment is coming all too late to help the bills which have been overturned by Bush's veto, perhaps it might help to get our Congress to do the will of the people. "A July national poll reported 54% of Americans want impeachment proceedings to begin against Mr. Cheney and 45% want them to start against Mr. Bush. An October poll of Vermont citizens reveals much higher percentages: 64% favor impeaching Mr. Cheney and 61% favor impeaching Mr. Bush. The tsunami is coming." National poll: americanresearchgroup.com/impeach/ Here are examples of key politicians who have come out in favor of impeachment recently. Rep Gwen Moore on ImpeachmentRepMooreSignsOn2WexlerLtr.2Conyers UrgingImpeachmentHearingsStart CanUAct? Jan 24 To: Impeachment Activists Fr: Buzz Davis, Chair, WI Impeachment/Bring Our Troops Home Coalition 608-873-4886 website ImpeachWI.org Linda Mistele of the Milw. Impeachment Committee just reported that 4th CD Rep. Gwen Moore has signed on to Rep. Wexler's letter to House Judiciary Chair John Conyers asking Chair Conyers to start the impeachment hearings in his committee. Per Rep. Wexler's office, as of today (Jan 24, 2008) 12 House members have co-signed the letter to Mr. Conyers plus the three authors of the letter (Rep. Wexler, Rep. Baldwin and Rep. Gutierrez) for a total of 15 House members. The letter will be released after more signatures are obtained. Please consider sending an email to your House member asking him or her to sign on to the Wexler letter or if you live Rep. Moore's or Rep. Baldwin's district please consider a thank you email for their political courage. We need many more House members to sign on regardless of whether they are Judiciary Committee members or not. YOUR action might just help another members sign on to the Wexler letter. You may also call any of these numbers toll free 24 hrs. a day, ask for the representative's office and then talk with a staff member or leave a voice message: 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803 http:// www.tammybaldwin.house.gov/get_address.html http:// www.house.gov/gwenmoore/issue_form.shtml Regardless of whether your House representative is Democrat or Republican pls. ask that person to sign on. The following is Rep. Wexler's letter to Rep. Conyers Thank you for your action! Buzz Davis, 608-873-4886 January __, 2008
John Conyers, Jr., Chairman
House Judiciary Committee
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Conyers:
You have been a tireless champion of providing oversight to an Administration that has run roughshod over our constitution, that operates with no limits on executive branch authority and one that has repeatedly flouted the investigations and oversight the 110th Congress has tried to provide over the past year. We have the greatest respect for the work you have done and believe that impeachment hearings pertaining to Vice President Cheney are the best way to move that work forward.
Impeachment hearings will allow for the exact kind of oversight that you and the Democratic leadership have provided regarding the actions of the Administration but without the opportunity for the Bush Administration to ignore lawful requests for information, refuse subpoenas and effectively limit its own oversight.
Impeachment hearings can provide the opportunity to cut through the executive privilege defenses and force this Administration to answer a Congress it has clearly chosen to ignore. We know you would agree that as Members of Congress, we can not allow legitimate oversight to be thwarted or such a dangerous precedent to stand.
The charges against the Vice President relate to the core actions of this Administration, its unlawful behavior and its abuse of power. We are concerned with alleged crimes that are central to his duties of Vice-President, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. As you know, the charges against Vice President Cheney include providing Congress and the American people false intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.
We trust that you will hold a sober investigation and let the facts determine the outcome as you have as Chairman this past year. We sincerely believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step given what we have seen of this Administration. Chairman Conyers, we are respectfully asking you join us and concerned citizens around the country in supporting impeachment hearings.
Sincerely,
As of 3:30 PM 1-24-08 15 House members have co-signed this letter
Washington Post: Former 1972 Democratic candidate for president Senator George McGovern came out in favor of impeachment. Why I Believe Bush Must Go
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.
By George McGovern
Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page B01
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.
Today I have made a different choice.
Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.
But what are the facts?
Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.
From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.
In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.
All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?
How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?
It happened in part because the Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam Hussein had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an "imminent threat" to the United States. The administration also led the public to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks -- another blatant falsehood. Many times in recent years, I have recalled Jefferson's observation: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
The basic strategy of the administration has been to encourage a climate of fear, letting it exploit the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks not only to justify the invasion of Iraq but also to excuse such dangerous misbehavior as the illegal tapping of our telephones by government agents. The same fear-mongering has led government spokesmen and cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the entire Arab and Muslim world -- more than a billion people.
Another shocking perversion has been the shipping of prisoners scooped off the streets of Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other countries without benefit of our time-tested laws of habeas corpus.
Although the president was advised by the intelligence agencies last August that Iran had no program to develop nuclear weapons, he continued to lie to the country and the world. This is the same strategy of deception that brought us into war in the Arabian Desert and could lead us into an unjustified invasion of Iran. I can say with some professional knowledge and experience that if Bush invades yet another Muslim oil state, it would mark the end of U.S. influence in the crucial Middle East for decades.
Ironically, while Bush and Cheney made counterterrorism the battle cry of their administration, their policies -- especially the war in Iraq -- have increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the United States. Consider the difference between the policies of the first President Bush and those of his son. When the Iraqi army marched into Kuwait in August 1990, President George H.W. Bush gathered the support of the entire world, including the United Nations, the European Union and most of the Arab League, to quickly expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The Saudis and Japanese paid most of the cost. Instead of getting bogged down in a costly occupation, the administration established a policy of containing the Baathist regime with international arms inspectors, no-fly zones and economic sanctions. Iraq was left as a stable country with little or no capacity to threaten others.
Today, after five years of clumsy, mistaken policies and U.S. military occupation, Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism and bloody civil strife. It is no secret that former president Bush, his secretary of state, James A. Baker III, and his national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, all opposed the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.
As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws -- that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."
I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.
There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger, such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered. anmcgove@dwu.edu By TAMMY BALDWIN
Posted: Jan. 19, 2008
On Dec. 14, I joined with my colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee, Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), in urging Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) to conduct hearings on a resolution of impeachment now pending consideration in that committee.
Among my constituents, there are those who say I have gone too far in calling for Congress to examine possible impeachable offenses by the Bush administration. There are also those who argue I have not gone far enough. In letters, emails, phone calls, personal conversations and listening sessions, I have heard passionate arguments from those who think we are losing our democracy and that I should do more to hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions.
The call to impeach is one I did not take lightly. But as we said in our letter to Chairman Conyers, the issues are too serious to ignore. We simply cannot discount or overlook numerous, credible allegations of abuse of power by the Bush administration that, if proven, may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our Constitution. To prove this, we must follow the form of the signers of our own Declaration of Independence who wrote, "let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
Impeachment hearings in the House Judiciary Committee will establish the facts and prove whether or not this administration did the following:
• Spied on Americans without a court order in violation of the Fourth Amendment;
• Directed senior members of the administration to ignore subpoenas in contempt of Congress;
• Outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert agent of the CIA and then intentionally obstructed justice by disseminating false information through the White House press office;
• Ordered U.S. attorneys to pursue politically-motivated prosecutions in violation of the law;
• Fired eight U.S. attorneys and allowed others to retain their jobs because of partisan political considerations;
• Refused to provide subpoenaed emails and other documentation;
• Purposefully manipulated intelligence to deceive American citizens and the Congress;
• Fabricated a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the war in Iraq - a war that has taken the lives of nearly 4,000 U.S. troops, injured 60,000 more, and that will cost more than a trillion dollars by many accounts;
• Alleged, despite all evidence to the contrary, a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida, to justify the war in Iraq;
• Manipulated and exaggerated evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities;
• Undermined national security by openly threatening aggression against Iran, despite no evidence that Iran has the intention or capability of attacking the U.S.;
• Suspended habeas corpus by claiming the power to declare any person an "enemy combatant" - ignoring the Geneva Convention protections that the U.S. helped create;
• Endorsed torture and rendition of prisoners in violation of international law and stated American policy and values, and destroyed videotaped evidence of such torture;
• Awarded unlawful no-bid contracts to political friends at home and abroad; and
• Skirted legal consequences by employing paid mercenaries to act as bodyguards for American diplomats in Iraq.
The abuses of this administration demand a formal response. Congressional oversight is a fundamental part of our constitutionally-proscribed system of checks and balances.
I had hoped that Congress could begin to repair the damage that has been done to our democracy, our Constitution and our standing in the world, so that censure or impeachment could be averted. Unfortunately, this administration not only fails to accept responsibility for its misdeeds, but it also blocks attempts to right the wrongs and address the tragic consequences of those misdeeds. We have seen the American people's will thwarted by the exercise of veto power. We have seen subpoenas ignored. We have seen signing statements used to circumvent the law of the land.
If we fail to take action to either impeach or repair the damage, then the next president will "inherit" unchecked powers. Unchecked powers are unacceptable no matter who is president.
It is unlikely that impeachment will move forward this session. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her view that impeachment should be "taken off the table," and that is her prerogative. I took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. That sacred pledge gives me no choice but to call for executive branch accountability in any and all forms possible.
Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, represents Wisconsin's second congressional district.
From the Jan. 20, 2008 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
To: Impeachment Activists Fr: Buzz Davis, Chair, WI Impeachment/Bring Our Troops Home Coalition 608-873-4886 website ImpeachWI.orgLinda Mistele of the Milw. Impeachment Committee just reported that 4th CD Rep. Gwen Moore has signed on to Rep. Wexler's letter to House Judiciary Chair John Conyers asking Chair Conyers to start the impeachment hearings in his committee. Per Rep. Wexler's office, as of today (Jan 24, 2008) 12 House members have co-signed the letter to Mr. Conyers plus the three authors of the letter (Rep. Wexler, Rep. Baldwin and Rep. Gutierrez) for a total of 15 House members. The letter will be released after more signatures are obtained. Please consider sending an email to your House member asking him or her to sign on to the Wexler letter or if you live (in) Rep. Moore's or Rep. Baldwin's district please consider a thank you email for their political courage. We need many more House members to sign on regardless of whether they are Judiciary Committee members or not. YOUR action might just help another members sign on to the Wexler letter. You may also call any of these numbers toll free 24 hrs. a day, ask for the representative's office and then talk with a staff member or leave a voice message: 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803 http:// www.tammybaldwin.house.gov/get_address.html http:// www.house.gov/gwenmoore/issue_form.shtml
Regardless of whether your House representative is Democrat or Republican pls. ask that person to sign on. The following is Rep. Wexler's letter to Rep. Conyers Thank you for your action! Buzz Davis, 608-873-4886 January __, 2008 John Conyers, Jr., Chairman
House Judiciary Committee
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Conyers:
You have been a tireless champion of providing oversight to an Administration that has run roughshod over our constitution, that operates with no limits on executive branch authority and one that has repeatedly flouted the investigations and oversight the 110th Congress has tried to provide over the past year. We have the greatest respect for the work you have done and believe that impeachment hearings pertaining to Vice President Cheney are the best way to move that work forward.
Impeachment hearings will allow for the exact kind of oversight that you and the Democratic leadership have provided regarding the actions of the Administration but without the opportunity for the Bush Administration to ignore lawful requests for information, refuse subpoenas and effectively limit its own oversight.
Impeachment hearings can provide the opportunity to cut through the executive privilege defenses and force this Administration to answer a Congress it has clearly chosen to ignore. We know you would agree that as Members of Congress, we can not allow legitimate oversight to be thwarted or such a dangerous precedent to stand.
The charges against the Vice President relate to the core actions of this Administration, its unlawful behavior and its abuse of power. We are concerned with alleged crimes that are central to his duties of Vice-President, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. As you know, the charges against Vice President Cheney include providing Congress and the American people false intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.
We trust that you will hold a sober investigation and let the facts determine the outcome as you have as Chairman this past year. We sincerely believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step given what we have seen of this Administration. Chairman Conyers, we are respectfully asking you join us and concerned citizens around the country in supporting impeachment hearings.
Sincerely,
As of 3:30 PM 1-24-08 15 House members have co-signed this letter
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