On July 16, 2007, Rick Noriega answered the call to serve from thousands of Texans across the state and formed an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. But this campaign is not about one person or candidate; it’s about all of us answering the call to serve.
This weekend, the Texas AFL-CIO endorsed Rick Noriega. Rick has a record of standing up for working families. Rick voted to increase the minimum wage, provide flexibility for parents to meet with their children’s teachers, increase teacher pay and retirement benefits, and prevent discrimination in the workplace.
Please click the link below and join with the Texas AFL-CIO in supporting Rick.
I hope you will join me in supporting Rick as he takes on this new challenge, to take back our state and nation from this administration and its number one cheerleader, the junior Senator from Texas, John Cornyn. It is an awesome challenge, and Rick is going to need all of us to stand with him.
I hope you’ll join me in being a part of Rick Noriega’s campaign team. We will fight for change. We will fight for Texas. And we will do it together. Just click the link below to get started!
ahh. finally someone articulates what it is that i’m feeling. and they do so much better than i’m able to. i am frustrated with politics, but unlike someone recently suggested to me—“yes, it’s frustrating when you just can’t get the idiots to like your candidate”—there is much, much more to it. it isn’t a matter of these two candidates: obama and clinton. the larger picture is still askew and it saddens me.
The sorrow of which I speak flows not from the fact that liberation has not yet been achieved but from a fear that the possibility of liberation may be lost forever, that our world may have passed the point of no return, psychologically and ecologically. Such fears are not grounds for abandoning politics, however. If you believe there is something to what I’ve said, it suggests only that we should think more carefully about where we put our political energies. I believe that the last place we should be sinking our energy is into presidential politics. When the political leaders vying for our votes make it clear they are committed to systems and institutions that keep us locked in the death trajectory, why should we offer them anything that is precious to us?
The most common response I get to that challenge is the claim that these candidates actually have a more radical agenda but realize that they must keep it under wraps in order to get elected. Just wait, I’m told, until after an election victory. That is likely to be a long wait, for there is no historical precedent for such a development, and nothing in the biography of either candidate that suggests a break with history. This observation typically is dismissed as cynicism, but I am not cynical. I am simply trying to deal with reality.
If only a center/right candidate who p lays to the greed and delusional self-indulgence of the United States can win, that is more evidence that this empire cannot be transformed into a decent society in the time available and that it is time to say of conventional politics, simply, “game over.” If that is the case—and I believe it’s a reasonable account of our society—more than ever the work is not to turn over our time, energy, and resources to any political candidate but to build alternatives on the ground. That is a political response to a political problem. It isn’t a question of hope v. no hope. It’s a question of reality v. delusion. To believe that an unsustainable system can be sustained indefinitely—and to support political candidates who believe that—is a sign not of hope but of desperation and defeat. To be realistic and hopeful, one must be radical.
holly sklar is always an informative read. i’m currently annoyed at the constant rhetoric about the “middle class”. whereas i realize that in a growing disparity between rich and poor, those in the middle are beginning to feel the pain, those at the very bottom of the chain are feeling it even more. services are cut, charities have fewer donations, food costs are up, housing prices are rising, etc. yet… the focus seems to continually be on “mr and mrs joe average” and their having to buy a smaller car, rather than the large SUV they really wanted. they’re having to ~consume less~. we need to save these people, so they can buy more useless crap they don’t need!!! all the while, the poor are ~really~ struggling. but if we refocus the debate and leave the poor out of it completely, then we need feel no guilt over our brand new tvs, our brand new computers, our new cars. should we feel guilt? maybe. as a society, absolutely. as individuals, perhaps.
Tax Day Gifts for the Rich
When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly say, “Mission accomplished.”
The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks between 2001 and 2008. That’s nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China—$493 billion—in the form of Treasury securities.
Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation’s future to finance tax breaks for the rich?
Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent—whose annual incomes average about $1.5 million—increase their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression.
Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid “a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007, a year when three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly losses in their history” and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.
The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.
For Americans below the top 1 percent, the tax cuts have been a giant swindle. The bottom 99 percent of taxpayers were left with a bill of $3.74 in debt for every $1 in federal tax cuts from 2001 to 2006, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. Only the top 1 percent came out ahead.
Meanwhile, the federal budgets for environmental protection and housing for the elderly have been slashed more than 20 percent since 2001, adjusted for inflation, the Community Development Block Grant budget is down 32 percent, and the lack of health insurance is an epidemic.
Most households aren’t even earning as much as they did in 1999, adjusting for inflation. But the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes doubled their incomes between 2002 and 2005.
According to the latest IRS data, which excludes tax-exempt interest income from state and local government bonds, the richest 400 taxpayers reported an average $214 million each on their federal income tax returns in 2005—up from $104 million in 2002.
As the Wall Street Journal observed, “It’s also important to remember that these figures don’t represent wealth or even lifetime earnings—merely income for a single year.”
Thanks to tax cuts, it’s now common for the nation’s richest bosses to pay taxes at a lower rate than workers. The 400 richest taxpayers paid only 18 percent of their income in federal individual income taxes in 2005 --- down from 30 percent in 1995.
“The drop in effective tax rates for the top 400 filers,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, “worked out to a tax reduction of $25 million per filer in 2005.” It would take 673 average workers earning $37,149 a year to reach $25 million today.
While tax cuts help the superrich compete over who has the biggest submarine-carrying superyacht, Katrina survivors are being hit with foreclosures, and neglected levees and bridges around the country are a disaster waiting to happen.
Most of the provisions of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. President Bush wants to make them permanent.
The richest 1 percent of households would receive nearly $1.2 trillion in tax cuts from 2009 through 2018, reports the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
How much is $1.2 trillion? More than all the debt accumulated in the nearly 200 years from George Washington through Ronald Reagan’s first two years in office. That’s before adding interest payments on the borrowed $1.2 trillion.
Tax cuts for the wealthy fuel rising inequality along with rising debt and neglect. Taxpayers with annual incomes above $1 million in fiscal year 2012, for example, would increase their after-tax income by 7.5 percent thanks to an average tax cut of $162,000. The poorest 20 percent of taxpayers would get an average tax cut of $45—and decaying public services.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama promise to end the tax breaks for the wealthy. Republican candidate John McCain wants to extend them. What do you want?
Holly Sklar is co-author of “Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us” and “A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future.”
the foundation in my building is being leveled by placing piers inside the units. so the tile floors that i put delayed putting in 3 years ago when we first had foundation repair done, are now going to have to be torn up so they can place NINE… yes, NINE piers in my unit. lucky, lucky me. the company doing the foundation work did come out and at least let me know where the work would be done, so i only need to clear my craft room, kitchen, and computer area… and anything breakable needs to be taken upstairs, as the jackhammering through the floors could cause things to break. lucky, lucky me. i can also expect to need to replace 9 tiles for every pier. plus any tiles that happen to pop up once they actually raise the foundation level. oddly, i have absolutely no signs of foundation problems. no cracks in teh walls or ceilings, no sticking doors. yet, they say there is a 4 inch difference between the front of my unit and the back. what i can’t help but think… leave the foundation, install me a drain, i’ll only ever need to hose down the inside of the house to clean it :O
they’ve already started on the unit next to me. the lovely sound of jackhammering allllll day long. yay :( i’ve until may 8th to get all my stuff moved, if i can make it without my head asploding :|
and btw, obama, you’ve lost my vote. you made a mistake when you first tried to distance yourself from reverend wright. rather than trying to paint him as some “crazy uncle”, you should have gone into black liberation theology and what it means. rather than leaving ME to answer why wright is different from falwell/robertson/right wing lunatic preachers, you should have done so. and what is the difference? wright wants all men to be equal. the right wing lunatic preachers want to suppress the rights of others. you should have explained the difference in rallying people against oppression and rallying them to oppress. instead, you let wright hang, because we know white people are scared of uppity black men who speak with passion and fire, so you tried to pander to those “typical white people”. and now? hillary has used wright against you by setting up this national press club engagement… and you have once again denied reverend wright. vehemently. and i have no respect for that. you are once again pandering to those “typical white people” rather than leading them, as a president should. and just who is it you are actually pandering to, obama?
THAT “typical white person” says things like:
[Obama] He’s done. Hillary will represent the Dems and America has gotten a taste of what they always knew in the back of their minds: Obama and most any Black leader will be nothing more than the new Al & Jessie Dog & Pony show.
and now we know why reverend wright speaks the way he does, trying to draw attention to the oppression and suppression of minorities in this country. shame on you, obama. shame.
and now to try to grab a bit more sleep before they start up with teh damn jackhammers again :|
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