Monday, November 28, 2011
DEMS vs. GOP
Just a few accomplishments of the Democratic
House Majority:
HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM to recognize health
care as a right, not a privilege and put a stop to the
worst abuses by insurance companies including
discrimination against people with pre-existing
medical conditions. [OPPOSED BY 100 % OF
HOUSE REPUBLICANS]
THE STUDENT AID AND FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
ACT to make the largest investment in college aid
in American history. [OPPOSED BY 100 % OF
HOUSE REPUBLICANS]
THE LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT to restore the
rights of women and other workers to challenge
unfair pay and help close the wage gap where
women earn 78 cents for every $1 that a man earns
in America. [OPPOSED BY A MAJORITY OF HOUSE
REPUBLICANS]
WALL STREET REFORM to rein in reckless practices
on Wall Street, end taxpayer-funded bail-outs and
"too big to fail" institutions, and protect and
empower consumers. [OPPOSED BY A MAJORITY
OF HOUSE REPUBLICANS]
Just one year of a failed Republican House Majority:
OBSTRUCTING JOB CREATION
· Failed to introduce a jobs plan and voted for budgets that would cost
nearly 2.5 million American jobs and voted against at least 17 times
against Democratic e orts to create them.
· Republicans oppose the American Jobs Act which former John
McCain economic advisor Mark Zandi said would create 1.9 million
jobs
PROTECTING SPECIAL INTERESTS
· Voted three times to end the Medicare guarantee for seniors and
raise health care costs by $6,000.
· Repeatedly protected tax loopholes for Big Oil and billionaires
EXTREME AGENDA TO APPEASE TEA PARTY
· Three times, House Republicans pushed our government to the brink
of a shutdown to put their radical agenda ahead of the
American people’s interests.
· Voted to repeal health insurance reform; Voted to defund NPR, PBS
and Sesame Street; Voted to classify pizza as a vegetable for school
children; Voted to defund Planned Parenthood and stop them from
o ering cancer screenings; Voted to protect companies that do
business with the Iranian regime
· Pushing plan to privatize Social Security
· Forced the Supercommittee to fail because they insisted on more tax
breaks for billionaires and Big Oil at the expense of the Medicare
guarantee and creating jobs
OUR PLAN TO WIN BACK THE MAJORITY: DRIVE TO 25
While Republicans pursue their extreme agenda
that fails to create jobs, Democrats have an agenda
to be successful and a clear-eyed plan to win the
Majority. It’s our “Drive to 25.”
25 Seats Democrats need to win the House
Majority
61 Seats Obama won in 2008 now held by a
Republicans in Congress
60+ Republican and open districts with strong
Democratic candidates running
With your help, we’ll take back the House in 2012!
Keep up to date and tell your friends to follow us
on Facebook at facebook.com/ElectDemocrats and
on Twitter at twitter.com/dccc
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
2012 Presidential Race
This is my blog covering the 2012 Presidential Race. I will try to be as fair and balanced with my coverage, even though I am a Democrat. Follow me and I will try and make the journey painless and sometimes funny...
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Obama's Delay in Approving the Keystone XL Pipeline is a Victory for God's Earth
by Jim Wallis 11-10-2011 | 6:16pm
President’s Obama’s delay in approving the Keystone XL Pipeline is a victory for the movement to stop it, for God’s earth, for the possibility of reversing climate change, and for saving the integrity of this administration.
Here is what the President just said:
Statement by the President on the State Department’s Keystone XL Pipeline Announcement
I support the State Department's announcement today regarding the need to seek additional information about the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood. The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people. At the same time, my administration will build on the unprecedented progress we’ve made towards strengthening our nation’s energy security, from responsibly expanding domestic oil and gas production to nearly doubling the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, to continued progress in the development of a clean energy economy.
A “No” to pipeline approval wasn’t really politically likely, with the likelihood of attacks on Obama by the Republicans and the labor movement of sacrificing jobs during an election year — even though the pipeline offers temporary and bad jobs.
The environmental movement is part of the Democratic President’s base, but so is labor and they are both more numerous and more effectively organized to help in presidential races.
So this delay is a victory for the possible future of a clean energy economy, which would produce many more and better jobs, while making a cleaner and more sustainable economy possible.
Kudos to the thousands of you who did principled civil disobedience at the White House in August, and the 12,000 who circled the White House on Sunday.
Thank you, President Obama, for making a decision that reflects your best judgment and best values.
And for people of faith, Thanks be to God!
Washington State has refineries. So does Montana. Why do we need to build a pipeline to ship crude to refineries in Texas when there are refineries much closer to the tar sands?
Perhaps they don't have the capacity. It does seem like it would be more cost effective to build some new refineries. Money better spent, speaking strictly from a practical standpoint.
The tar sands themselves are an environmental disaster. This is a perfect example of how oil companies could evaluate their choices and instead of investing in dirty fossil fuels, invest in clean renewables. Either way, they have to spend more money and develop new technology. Tar sands are not easy oil, and they require tremendous amounts of energy to extract. So instead of putting the money and brain power in that, why not put it into greener forms of energy? It makes good business sense, since that is the direction we are going. A forward thinking energy company would think to the future rather than trying to squeeze every dirty, increasingly costly drop of oil from the earth.
It's like listening to 8-tracks when you have an i-pod.
Different refineries are designed to handle different types of oil. And there are already pipelines sending tar sands oil to Texas. Texas already has the infrastructure and connections to the existing fuel transportation network.
If you think building a new refinery would be more practical, then you don't understand the regulatory nightmare of building anything in this country that involves an environmental impact statement. About the only thing more difficult to build than an oil pipeline is a nuclear power plant or oil refinery. This administration has already drug its heels for three years on the XL project and will continue the red tape for a couple more. How long do you think a new refinery would take to approve?
Over half of our oil use is for purposes other than energy and transportation. Even if you required every car, truck, boat, plane, train, scooter, and lawnmower in the country to run on something other than fossil fuels by next week, there would still be a need for the oil from the tar sands.
Well, I guess I was suggesting an environmental compromise with my crazy idea of building a refinery nearer the source of the oil.
"Even if you required every car, truck, boat, plane, train, scooter, and lawnmower in the country to run on something other than fossil fuels by next week, there would still be a need for the oil from the tar sands."
Not really--cut out half of our oil needs, and we wouldn't need the tar sands, and probably not even Saudi Arabia's oil. Half of the oil we use is from foreign countries.
Bottom line, tar sands or no tar sands, oil is more difficult to obtain, more expensive, requires more technology, more polluting, and in smaller, more remote, and more scattered deposits than it ever has been. It will not get cheaper in the long run. It will only get more expensive the scarcer it gets.
We have a choice where to invest our energy dollars.
so Jim, now God is on YOUR side? you who has yakked both voluminously and dizzyingly about the political 'right' claiming they speak for God now purport that God and her earth is unquestionably on your side on this one? I'm truly disappointed, friend; thought you were a bit more intelligent than to stoop so low!
Really??? It seems Wallis is already getting political. It is the official start of the "silly season.". What if we had McCain as President and he delayed the decision. Would have Wallis written the same article? I doubt it. We would be reading an article about his entirely political decision to get votes from the middle. Imagine if a GOP president had just hired a XL pipeline Lobbyist as his chief political consultant, as Obama just did. We would not hear the end of it.
And what about the price and availability of energy for poor people? Rich people will always be able to afford oil, etc.; projects like this are for the benefit of ordinary people. It also would involve buying oil from our friends, not our enemies. This has obvious implications for saving money on foreign wars. As for alternate energy making "good business sense": have you heard of Solyndra? It's just private business seeking public subsidies. A bad idea. A better idea is smaller government so the stakes for either side,whoever wins,are smaller--much smaller.
"And what about the price and availability of energy for poor people?"
The irony, of course, is that I rarely hear such protests about the plight of the impoverished when it comes to cutting services for them or suggestions for raising the minimum wage. What I do hear a lot is that the church or individuals should care for the poor.
Well, here's what we all can do, if your energy concerns are truly about how it affects the impoverished. On most energy bills I have seen, we have the opportunity to donate money to help those who can't pay their heat or electricity. So while we are building a cleaner energy economy and waiting for those technologies to come down in price, we can still help those who can't pay their energy bills. It only effects the poor because those of us who can afford to help them don't.
If you are concerned about the poor, btw, I do hope that you are protesting mountaintop mining, as that is having profoundly negative affects on some of the most impoverished communities in our nation. Also, how many coal fired power plants have you seen in wealthy neighborhoods? Fossil fuels affect the impoverished far more than they affect the rich. Given that, and given that those who say alternative fuels will hurt the poor don't fight to end the disproportionate environmental and health effects fossil fuels have on them, I don't buy into the "it will hurt the poor" argument at all.
A whole grab bag of ideas and accusations. . . .I actually agree with a lot of what Squeaky brought up. Supporting this pipeline doesn’t make me or anyone else an opponent of environmental stewardship
1. Subsidies for heating costs as part of a bill or approval of a project. Probably a good idea. The question is how much and for how long, and how it fits in with the large government burden of taxes and regulations. These cut jobs in the U.S. for poor people, of course.
2. Mountaintop mining. Sounds like a horrible idea. West Virginia’s high-profile, un-glaciated mountains are beautiful, and it’s sad to think of them being destroyed. Still,it is a lot safer than underground mining, so we need to balance both concerns
3. I like the big picture approach, seeing how things affect one another, and also trading off costs and benefits. Two questionable “one size fits all” rules that come to mind are low flush toilets and outlawing incandescent bulbs. Both of them were a boon to interested parties like plumbers, and the fluorescent bulb manufactures that lobbied for the ban.
4. So a really “big picture” question for you is: how much of this good ought to be done by the government, and how much by individuals? Unfortunately, Jim has decided to devote his energies to insisting that the government do it. I disagree with that, not in every case, but as an overall philosophy. The government is already too big, and the bigger it is, the stronger special interests will be. It’s impossible to get away from that. One special interest group is the govt employees themselves: one SIXTH make six figure salaries! Making gov’t bigger helps them more than the poor. And it’s no fair saying it’s expensive to live in DC, because that’s the fault of the size of the government! What about the destruction of northern Virginia by suburban sprawl? Historic sites are surrounded by ugliness, or simply paved over.
5. Another disastrous trend for the environment, scarcely noticed by the left, is the decline in the no. of people per household, and increase in the size of residences. Jim rarely talks about either of these. To a certain extent, that’s a problem with the whole notion of “God’s politics”: we try to tease out ideas about the government from the Bible, do a lot of speculation(left wingers and right wingers alike), while ignoring the things God has stated in an unmistakable manner, like “I hate divorce.” If our society was honoring that admonition, household size would be a lot closer to what it used to be, and, guess what, the environment would benefit a lot, too! God’s laws are for our blessing: both the natural ones that govern sunsets and mountain climbing, and the moral ones that guard us from stupid & destructive behaviors. Sadly, it’s the least of these that always suffer: children and the poor. We do, indeed, need repentance.
When the White House Calls to Say, "OK, You Win."
by Rose Marie Berger 11-10-2011 | 6:29pm
It didn’t take long — after news broke this afternoon that President Obama had indefinitely kyboshed the climate-killer Keystone XL pipeline — for my phone to ring.
Rose Marie Berger (left with blue stole) shortly before her arrest during an anti-Keystone protest at the White House in August.
“Hi Rose, I’m calling from White House on behalf of President Obama," the voice on the other end of the line said. "We wanted to makes sure you’d seen the president’s executive order postponing the permitting of the pipeline until another environmental impact report can be done, especially focusing on sensitive environmental issues in Nebraska.
"And we want to thank you for your good work on this issue. We’re just reaching out to let you know that the President hears you and we hope you’ll continue to help us focus on the really critical issues that are facing us right now.”
This afternoon President Obama made an official announcement on the Keystone XL Pipeline that so many of you have been working on these last several months. He said in part,
“Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood. … . The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people.”
Wow!
What started as an issue among First Nations folks on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border, expanded to the American Midwest where churches, farmers, and environmentalists were warning of corporate shenanigans that could poison the Ogallala aquifer (“America’s well”), and has become an international issue with more than 650,000 people signing petitions to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, has now shifted a United States president and his administration away from their earlier stated intentions.
Developing the Canadian tar sands to extract unconventional petroleum has been a disastrous proposal from the very beginning. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency points out that Canadian tar sands carbon emissions are “82 percent greater than the average crude refined in the U.S., on a well-to-tank basis.”
This pipeline is a climate killer. It is morally right for President Obama to delay this decision until he can deny the permit.
We must remain vigilant to make sure powerful corporate interests don’t merely drive the decision-making process underground. We can also thank the President, the State Department, and especially the Environmental Protection Agency for truly acting on our national interest by giving more deliberate scrutiny to this particular pipeline, tar sands development, and push them continue shifting our nation toward renewable fuels and energy and the “clean jobs” needed to take us forward.
This is a great win. Who are the winners? Poor people who are most critically affected by climate change. Midwest farmers who must protect their land and our water supply. Indigenous communities who lives are threatened by tar sands development.
Who are the biggest “winners”?
People of faith.
Our earth is a prayer that we offer back in praise of our Creator. Let us dance and celebrate and praise God for God’s guiding presence — and keep a watchful eye those who would lead us down the road that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13).
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners contributing editor, was an organizer for the Tar Sands religious witness. Learn more about the pipeline at www.tarsandsaction.com.
John Boehner says Bush tax cuts created 8 million jobs over 10 years
The Truth-O-Meter Says:
The Bush tax cuts "created about 8 million jobs over the first 10 years that they were in existence. We've lost about 5 million of those jobs during this recession."
John Boehner on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 in an interview on NBC's "Today" show
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House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, appeared on NBC's Today show on May 10, 2011. We checked his facts on job creation.
During an interview on NBC’s Todayshow, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, offered some job-creation statistics to cast a favorable light on the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.
Host Matt Lauer said to Boehner, "You talk about creating jobs. When the Bush era tax cuts were passed in 2001, unemployment in this country was 4.5 percent. Today it's at 9 percent, just down from 10 percent. So why are the Bush era tax cuts creating jobs?"
Boehner responded that the tax cuts "created about 8 million jobs over the first 10 years that they were in existence. We've lost about 5 million of those jobs during this recession."
Several readers suggested that we check Boehner’s statistics. So we did.
Host Matt Lauer said to Boehner, "You talk about creating jobs. When the Bush era tax cuts were passed in 2001, unemployment in this country was 4.5 percent. Today it's at 9 percent, just down from 10 percent. So why are the Bush era tax cuts creating jobs?"
Boehner responded that the tax cuts "created about 8 million jobs over the first 10 years that they were in existence. We've lost about 5 million of those jobs during this recession."
Several readers suggested that we check Boehner’s statistics. So we did.
Boehner's statement actually has several problems. One is the question of whether the tax cuts actually caused the job growth; more on that later. First, we’ll point out something more basic -- that Boehner’s chronology is off.
The first of the tax cuts was passed in June 2001, so we haven’t hit a full 10 years since the first cut was enacted, and we’re only about eight years past the enactment of the second round of cuts. We’ll give Boehner the most generous parameters possible -- from the signing of the first tax cut in June 2001 until the pre-recession employment peak, which came in January 2008. (When we contacted Boehner’s office, they confirmed that this is the comparison he had in mind.)
We turned to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- specifically, figures from the Current Employment Statistics series, which is calculated using a broad survey of employer payroll data. Here are the numbers:
June 2001: 132,047,000 people employed
January 2008: 137,996,000 people employed
Increase during that six-and-a-half-year period: 5,949,000 people
That’s roughly 6 million jobs -- significantly below the 8 million Boehner cited.
Now let’s turn to the jobs lost during the recession. We once again calculated the numbers in the way most favorable to Boehner -- from the peak of employment (January 2008) to the lowest point (February 2010). Here are the figures:
January 2008: 137,996,000 people employed
February 2010: 129,246,000 people employed
Decrease during the roughly two-year period: 8,750,000 people
That’s almost 9 million jobs lost -- almost twice what Boehner had said on Today.
What’s going on?
When we reached Boehner’s office, spokesman Michael Steel provided a different set of numbers -- numbers that we determined were from a different set of BLS statistics, known as the Current Population Survey.
The numbers from the CPS data are produced by a smaller survey of individuals and families. They are best known for producing the widely tracked national unemployment rate, but the data also include an estimate of the raw number of employed Americans, which is what Boehner used.
Here are the CPS figures for the same periods we looked at above:
June 2001: 136,873,000 people employed
January 2008: 146,407,000 people employed
Increase over about six and a half years: 9,534,000 people
January 2008: 146,407,000 people employed
February 2010: 138,698,000 people employed
Decrease over about two years: 7,709,000 people
So using the CPS figures, Boehner actually underestimated the jobs created after the passage of the Bush tax cuts, rather than overestimating them. And his number of jobs lost in the recession was closer to the CPS number than to the CES number.
In other words, using one set of data, Boehner’s way off, and using another set, he’s closer. What gives?
For the periods studied, the two data sets’ varying methodologies appear to have produced large differences in the number of jobs created and lost. While both statistics have their advantages and disadvantages, the CES numbers are "usually preferred when talking about job growth or loss," said Stacey Standish, a BLS spokeswoman.
And there’s this problem: What if we had used Boehner's 10 year figure rather than the six-and-a-half-year upswing of jobs? Over the full 10 years, employment has actually fallen by more than 1 million jobs using CES numbers and risen by 2.8 million according to the CPS figures. Either way, both figures are well below the job gains Boehner touted for the full 10-year period.
We turned to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- specifically, figures from the Current Employment Statistics series, which is calculated using a broad survey of employer payroll data. Here are the numbers:
June 2001: 132,047,000 people employed
January 2008: 137,996,000 people employed
Increase during that six-and-a-half-year period: 5,949,000 people
That’s roughly 6 million jobs -- significantly below the 8 million Boehner cited.
Now let’s turn to the jobs lost during the recession. We once again calculated the numbers in the way most favorable to Boehner -- from the peak of employment (January 2008) to the lowest point (February 2010). Here are the figures:
January 2008: 137,996,000 people employed
February 2010: 129,246,000 people employed
Decrease during the roughly two-year period: 8,750,000 people
That’s almost 9 million jobs lost -- almost twice what Boehner had said on Today.
What’s going on?
When we reached Boehner’s office, spokesman Michael Steel provided a different set of numbers -- numbers that we determined were from a different set of BLS statistics, known as the Current Population Survey.
The numbers from the CPS data are produced by a smaller survey of individuals and families. They are best known for producing the widely tracked national unemployment rate, but the data also include an estimate of the raw number of employed Americans, which is what Boehner used.
Here are the CPS figures for the same periods we looked at above:
June 2001: 136,873,000 people employed
January 2008: 146,407,000 people employed
Increase over about six and a half years: 9,534,000 people
January 2008: 146,407,000 people employed
February 2010: 138,698,000 people employed
Decrease over about two years: 7,709,000 people
So using the CPS figures, Boehner actually underestimated the jobs created after the passage of the Bush tax cuts, rather than overestimating them. And his number of jobs lost in the recession was closer to the CPS number than to the CES number.
In other words, using one set of data, Boehner’s way off, and using another set, he’s closer. What gives?
For the periods studied, the two data sets’ varying methodologies appear to have produced large differences in the number of jobs created and lost. While both statistics have their advantages and disadvantages, the CES numbers are "usually preferred when talking about job growth or loss," said Stacey Standish, a BLS spokeswoman.
And there’s this problem: What if we had used Boehner's 10 year figure rather than the six-and-a-half-year upswing of jobs? Over the full 10 years, employment has actually fallen by more than 1 million jobs using CES numbers and risen by 2.8 million according to the CPS figures. Either way, both figures are well below the job gains Boehner touted for the full 10-year period.
Meanwhile, there are other concerns beyond the statistics. While J.D. Foster, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he feels both CES and CPS are valid measures, he wondered whether Boehner had oversold cause and effect. "The real issue is the statement that the Bush tax cuts ‘created’ these jobs," Foster said. "Would the economy have created no jobs during this period but for the tax cuts?"
And Gary Burtless, a labor economist with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution, argues that "the more basic point is that under either measure of employment gain, the proportional rise in employment in the Bush Administration after passage of his initial tax cut was comparatively small."
Burtless put together a comparison of recent two-term presidential administrations’ job growth over the equivalent period -- the 81 months starting in the June after the president’s inauguration. George W. Bush produced smaller job gains than most recent administrations regardless of which employment measure is used.
Employment under Bush grew by 4.5 percent using CES and 7 percent using CPS, whereas employment grew by double digits under presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, and also under the combined eight-year administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, who finished Nixon's term after he resigned, and John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Only under Eisenhower was job growth more sluggish than it was under George W. Bush, and even then, it was only the case using one of the two BLS statistics. (Burtless did not compare job growth during the administrations of George H.W. Bush or Jimmy Carter because they served only one term each.)
Where does all this leave us? First, under the most common yardstick for measuring employment -- the CES data -- Boehner's claim is significantly overstated. Second, while Boehner is closer when using a different statistic, it’s only more accurate if he uses a time period much different than the one he stated in the interview. And third, his suggestion that the tax cuts are primarily responsible for subsequent job growth is contentious at best (and the job growth he points to is modest compared to previous administrations).
So the numbers Boehner offers are accurate only with significant adjustments. Overall, we find his statement too flawed to give it a rating higher than False.
Burtless put together a comparison of recent two-term presidential administrations’ job growth over the equivalent period -- the 81 months starting in the June after the president’s inauguration. George W. Bush produced smaller job gains than most recent administrations regardless of which employment measure is used.
Employment under Bush grew by 4.5 percent using CES and 7 percent using CPS, whereas employment grew by double digits under presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, and also under the combined eight-year administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, who finished Nixon's term after he resigned, and John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Only under Eisenhower was job growth more sluggish than it was under George W. Bush, and even then, it was only the case using one of the two BLS statistics. (Burtless did not compare job growth during the administrations of George H.W. Bush or Jimmy Carter because they served only one term each.)
Where does all this leave us? First, under the most common yardstick for measuring employment -- the CES data -- Boehner's claim is significantly overstated. Second, while Boehner is closer when using a different statistic, it’s only more accurate if he uses a time period much different than the one he stated in the interview. And third, his suggestion that the tax cuts are primarily responsible for subsequent job growth is contentious at best (and the job growth he points to is modest compared to previous administrations).
So the numbers Boehner offers are accurate only with significant adjustments. Overall, we find his statement too flawed to give it a rating higher than False.
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