Jul 012011
GETTING FATTER AND FATTER: AMERICA’S OBESITY EPIDEMIC? NOPE. JUST THE PENTAGON BUDGET…
The mantra in Washington these days is “spending cuts” and “trimming the fat” off of government. Such iconic and successful government programs as Medicare and Social Security are on the chopping block. But one aspect of the federal budget appears immune to the lust for austerity. The Pentagon has received billions of dollars in budget increases yearly, and even a promise from the White House to sniff out waste in the military won;t be enough to reduce defense spending. Now a report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the Pentagon’s penchant for eating through cash will be worse than imagined in the coming years. The CBO says that higher costs for weapons systems and health care will drive military spending up by $40 billion over the next five years. While the goal of the administration and some in Congress is to cut the Pentagon’s budget, the CBO says that their estimate for rapid growth in spending is based on how much money would be needed to “execute the Pentagon’s plans.”
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PIGS ON THE WING IN SOUTH DAKOTA? ANTI-ABORTION CROWD TAKES A LEGAL HIT.
The most restrictive “mandatory counseling” law in the nation was struck down in court on Thursday, a shocking defeat for anti-abortion proponents in one of the most conservative states in the country. A federal judge ordered a halt to South Dakota’s planned implementation of a new law that would force women seeking an abortion to wait three days before any procedure and to receive mandatory counseling from a state-approved “pregnancy center” that actively espouses anti-abortion beliefs and tries to steer women away from abortions. Pro-choice advocates in South Dakota called the ruling a “decisive victory” and warned that “some politicians have overreached” in striving to deny women the right to an abortion. Supporters of the waiting period and mandatory anti-abortion counseling have vowed to continue the fight in court.
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS! MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS PUSHING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR A “TAX HOLIDAY” ON THEIR HUGE PROFITS ARE ENGAGING IN A “SHELL GAME” TO DUCK TAXES.
Cisco, the well-known global manufacturer of networking equipment, has taken in $20 billion in global sales since 2008. In that time, the giant multinational corporation has paid virtually no taxes to the United States, using a variety of loopholes and “legal” maneuvers to evade their legitimate tax bill and a pay a paltry rate of 5% on their massive profits. Now, despite being so successful at avoiding what can only be described as their fair share in taxes, Cisco, along with other major American corporations, is aggressively lobbying the federal government to enact a corporate tax holiday that would allow companies like Cisco to “repatriate” the profits they shuffled off to tax havens like Switzerland and Bermuda back to the US without paying any taxes. One law professor and tax expert calls the proposal an “enormous shell game,” because corporations would be getting two major — and expensive — breaks from Uncle Sam: the first when they were allowed to funnel profits derived from their US operations overseas, and the second when they would be granted the opportunity to bring back those same profits to America, tax-free.
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Until so called pro-life come out against the death penalty, they do not deserve that name.
Either we get very serious about women’s rights now or we allow the radical right to push our country to the breaking point and then degenerate into cultural violence. Most people realize on an individual level that allowing someone to push you to the breaking point is a bad decision, and yet as a country we allow the Christian right to push us further and further and further. The reason we do this is because we’re peaceful people involved with our private lives. But in the end this refusal to stand up is going to result in MORE violence than refusing to address the issue now.
I have an idea about how to reduce the defense budget. Pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and never engage in another foreign war of intervention. Close the military bases we have in over a hundred-thirty countries, and use our military for actual defense.