Wisconsin Governor Uses Middle-East Tactics; Blocks Website – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker partially blocked a left-leaning website that union supporters used to rally protesters as demonstrators gathered in the state Capitol.
The website, www.defendwisconsin.org could not be accessed in the Capitol building on Monday and Tuesday were lawmakers debated a bill to eradicate collective-bargaining rights of public sector employees. The Capitol internet service, which restricts access to certain websites considered inappropriate for lawmakers, revealed a “blocked page” when users tried to access the site using the wireless system in the building.
The Teacher Assistants Association (TAA) has also accused Walker of cutting off wifi access to a room they had taken over as a headquarters inside of the Capitol. yesterday the Wifi connection mysteriously ended with no explanation as to why.
Remind you of anyone?
House Bill Degrades and Destroys Environment – Last week, the House Majority — on a virtual straight party-line vote — passed an extreme bill that terminated funding for dozens of important environmental programs. In a clear sign that the Republicans are not interested in science or the truth, the bill would stop the EPA from even collecting data on sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants.
If the bill becomes law, we will return to a Bush-era policy of degrading and even destroying America’s wilderness through oil and gas development, off road vehicle abuses, and other forms of development. Meanwhile, the bill leaves untouched $4 billion in annual oil, gas and coal subsidies.
Budget Cuts Take Aim at the Poor – Over the weekend, the House approved more than $60 billion in budget cuts from hundreds of federal programs. Unfortunately, some of these cuts threaten the health and survival of the world’s most vulnerable. These cuts are more than just numbers. If approved by the Senate, these cuts will have a real impact on the men, women and children who need these programs to survive. The budget cuts to the Global Fund alone would keep 10 million malaria bed nets from being delivered to malaria prone communities, prevent 3.7 million people from getting tested for HIV and deny 400,000 new patients from getting life-saving anti-retroviral treatments. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote earlier this week, these cuts will be “devastating to our national security, will render us unable to respond to unanticipated disasters and will damage our leadership around the world.”
Republican Social Engineering – A study by Christopher Faricy, a political science professor at Washington State, shows there is no statistically conclusive evidence that Democratic control of the federal government results in higher levels of total social spending. Additionally, the study shows that Republican control of the legislature results in a higher ratio of indirect to direct social spending. An increase in indirect social spending has the same budgetary effect as direct social spending. For example, an increase in tax deductions for private health care insurance that costs the Treasury $100 million dollars has the exact same effect on the budget deficit as a newly proposed public health insurance option that is projected at $100 million dollars.
So, if Republicans are spending just as much, if not more in some cases, on social programs, then why are they constantly cutting social programs in the guise of “balancing the budget?” Because the programs being eliminated do not provide a form of wealth kickback to their pool of voters. Republicans are the ones truly doing the social engineering as they continue their crusade to defund programs and replace them with their own charities and non-profits that can pick and choose agendas to push.
Republicans, it turns out, actually spend a bit more money on social programs than Democrats, as the green bars in the chart below show. The main difference? Democrats spend it on direct programs that largely serve “the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, and the poor…ethnic minorities, racial minorities, and single mothers.” Republicans spend it indirectly on programs that “are biased towards workers who are White, full-time, in large companies, and high-wage earners.” But spend it they do.
Regards,
Jim
Andy Hailey