Tag: Washington Post

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money Politics United States

While Congress Got Richer, Average Americans Got Poorer

The New York Times is once again, shedding some light on the selfish, mine mine mine mentality that is now elected Congressional members. Apparently, Congress is the place to go if you want to be a millionaire, while the rest of your constituents suffer!

While the median net worth of members of Congress jumped 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans remained essentially flat. For all Americans, median net worth dropped 8 percent, based on inflation-adjusted data from Moody’s Analytics.

Going back further, the median wealth of House members grew some two and a half times between 1984 and 2009 in inflation-adjusted dollars, while the wealth of the average American family has actually declined slightly in that same time period, according to data cited by The Washington Post in an article published Monday on its Web site.

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Charlie Sheen Democratic Republican Wisconsin Wisconsin Union Bashing

Recall Efforts in Wisconsin Picking Up Pace

The main-stream media has been transfixed over the last three weeks by two stories, Libya – including whether the correct spelling is Kadaffie,  Gadaffie or Qadiffie – and Charlie Sheen and the tiger-blood running through his veins! Lost in all this confusion is a massive recall effort going on in Wisconsin, and the people’s fight to work, live, and pay their bills.

In a move that many have considered illegal, Republican governor Scott Walker and his Republican cohorts rammed a bill through the state’s congress to its passage. The bill, which takes away the negotiating rights of public union employees, created such an uproar in Wisconsin and all across the country, that a tremendous effort to recall 8 of the Republicans who passed the bill have been in progress for the last two weeks.

And now, a report from the Washington Post is stating that 45% of the votes needed to recall the Republican congressional lobbyists, have been achieved.

Dems have now collected over 56,000 signatures supporting the recall drives, according to party spokesman Graeme Zielinski, after another surge in organizing activity over the weekend. That’s up from rougly 14,000 after last weekend. This means Dems are well ahead of schedule: In each targeted district, Dems need to amass the required signatures — 25 percent of the number who voted in the last gubernatorial election — by a deadline of 60 days after first filing for recalls, which happened nearly two weeks ago.

In other words, Dems are reporting they are nearly halfway to the finish line, with roughly three-fourths of the alloted time remaining.

As per the report and the rules for recall, Democrats have 60 days from the time the recall paperwork was filed to come up with the needed signatures. The report continues;

According to Wisconsin Dem spokesman Zielinski, Dems are ahead of pace in signature gathering in every single one of the eight districts being targteted, and in three of the districts, Dems have well over 50 percent of the number required.

But who cares about this fight? Tune in to CNN and MSNBC for continued coverage of Kadaffie and Sheen’s night out!

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Economic growth Politics Republican

Republicans Say “It’s All About Jobs,” So They Will Cut 700,000 More

When John Boehner said, “if we lose 200,000 federal jobs, so be it,” we listened and thought the figures didn’t add up. A little  research into the facts revealed the figure was more like 20,000 to 40,000 jobs lost if Boehner got his way.

Now, after economists studied the Republican budget and the effects of it’s cutting $61 billion dollars from it, the result – as reported by  financial economists – would be a job loss of 700,000 by the end of 2012.

According to reports from The Washington Post;

Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.

His report comes on the heels of a similar analysis last week by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which predicted that the Republican spending cuts would cause even greater damage to the economy, slowing growth by as much as 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of this year.

Of course, Republicans stand by their claims that cutting $61 billion will create jobs and put America back on its financially feet. And of course, they’re the only ones believing this claim.

Maybe more appropriate for Boehner would be to claim, “Losing 700,000 jobs because of our budget and 200,000 federal jobs? Whatever!  I must keep a campaign promise, so be it!”

Read the rest of the Washington Post report here.

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Ezra Klein Politics United States

Ezra Klein Is Wrong On This Issue

Steve Benen of The Washington Monthly ran an interesting piece, stating that judges who voted against the Affordable Care Act, or what the conservatives are calling ObamaCare, receive more press attention than those who voted for the bill.

He then broke it down by the numbers showing that on verdict 1, which supported the Democratic position of Health Care, received an average of 581 words from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press and Politico.

On verdict 2, which also went in favor of the Democrats and the Obama administration, received an average of 438 words per article from the same four news agencies.

However, when verdict 3 came out by Federal District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, whose decision went against the Democrats, the same four news agencies wrote an average of 1648 words in articles. Then yesterday, January 31st, another Federal Judge in Florida issued verdict 4 against the Health Reform Bill, and receive an average of 1742 words from the four. Mr. Benen question was, “If there’s a sensible explanation for this, I’d love to hear it.”

Ezra Klein, who writes for the Washington Post responded to Mr. Benen’s article saying,

“I actually think there is a sensible explanation for this: The two judges who ruled for the bill upheld the status quo. And they went first. So their rulings changed nothing. No one could accuse me of harboring an anti-ACA agenda, but I didn’t give those rulings much coverage.

The two judges who ruled against the bill called for enormous changes to the status quo, and enormous changes to the status quo are almost the definition of what “news” is. These two rulings have genuinely called the bill’s future into question, and that’s a big story.”

Well, although I tend to agree with Ezra Klein on many issues, and besides the fact that we share the same first name, I’ll have to disagree with his position on this matter.

Benen is right! There is simply no sensible explanation for the one-sided coverage. And although some may claim the sensationalism of a Federal Judge voting against the status quo is the “definition of what news is,” I prefer to think of the sensationalism of a life changed, if the Health Care reform law remains in effect. Now that’s news!

Categories
Barack Obama Politics Pre-existing condition Republican Party (United States) United States

Report Shows 129 Million Americans Have a Pre Existing Condition

HHS Kathleen Sebelius

According to a report to be released Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services, there are around 129 million Americans under the age of 65 who have a pre-existing condition that will allow insurance companies to deny them care, or even drop their policy all together.

The report comes at a time when the Republican controlled House of Representatives are introducing legislation to repeal President Obama’s signature Health Care Reform bill, signed into law in March of 2010. The  repeal is mainly to appease the Teaparty and their base supporters, as the measure will not pass the Democratic controlled Senate. And in the unlikely event that the repeal passes the House and Senate, President Obama has said it will be vetoed.

As reported by The Washington Post, the study found that one-fifth to one-half of non-elderly people in the United States have conditions that trigger rejection or higher prices in the individual insurance market. These conditions range from cancer to heart disease, asthma and high blood pressure.

A Republican aide calls the release of the report “political,” suggesting that it is an attempt to influence the repeal vote in the House of Representatives. Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius told the Post, “Americans living with pre-existing conditions are being freed from discrimination in order to get the health coverage they need.”

Not if House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican allies get their way!

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