While we're on the subject of Seniors, there is a LOT of bull coming from Both Republicans and Democrats about Social Security. The truth of the matter is Social Security has a 2.5 TRILLION dollar surplus right now! That's right! A surplus. Social Security is not in any danger until 2037 and that's only if we don't take steps now. So how do we fix that possible problem?
Every decent economist says it's simple: remove the tax ceiling on Social Security. Right now the ceiling is tax paid up to $!06,000. Over that, those who make more pay nothing extra, BUT they get to reap higher benefits when they retire. Yep! You heard that. People like John McCain who is worth millions still takes his Social Security Check every month. Will he miss it if it's stopped? Hardly. Will you miss yours?
What do you mean you didn't put aside an extra $100 a month since 1970? But even if you had, you would have lost 90% of it during the Bush Administrations Wall Street screwup!
What can you do? Make sure you call our turncoat Jason Altmire and tell him Hands off Social Security! Right now, he's agreeing with other WEALTHY Congressmen that Social Security should be gutted to help reduce the deficit.
It won't by a long shot, plain and simple. Watch this then call him or write and tell him don't touch Social Security!
Natrona Heights Office
2124 Freeport Road
Natrona Heights, PA 15065
724-226-1304
Washington, D.C. Office
332 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-2565
Straight Talk for Seniors on Health Care Reform
Click the above title to go to the site.
Please read this article if you are a senior citizen or have a senior citizen as a parent of even friend. The amount of misinformation being disseminated by Fox and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is staggering. And in case you didn't know, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has NO connection to the government! It's not run by any department of the government and gets none of your tax dollars , at least directly, from the government. It is an arm of business for business only and doesn't care about anything but business. Please take that into account when someone tells you the Chamber says ANYTHING!
Go to the site listed at the top of this page for all the information you need to know about Senior Health Reform. Chances are real good that most of what you think you know or believe or have been told by Fox and the Chamber is totally intentional misinformation. If you choose to only believe Fox, The Chamber(pot) of Congress or even CNN, you are doing yourself a serious disservice.
I have to add that the Republicans and a number of Blue Dog (traitor) Democrats want to repeal this! If they get their way, none of this will come about and seniors will have virtually nothing! By the way, our own two-faced representative Jason Altmire is a Blue Dog Democrat (Democrat in name only) who is for the repeal of the Health Care Bill because he says it will add to the deficit, which it will not. Yet he has no problem spending your tax money on an additional 300 billion for the war which will add to the deficit which we found out, over 8 billion of your tax dollars has disappeared from Iraq just this year and that's not counting what's missing from Afghanistan. Add to that total the 100 billion of your tax dollars that disappeared during the Bush Administration, the 700 billion spent on the Iraq War, the 300 billion so far on the Afghan War and you all could have had free health care...and there would be no deficit.
UPDATE:While the Senate cut all the funding for teachers and education in the bill that included massive funding for the illegal war in Afghanistan, Altmire had no problem voting to spend your tax dollars on more killing and ignoring education. How's that for priorities? And if ANYONE would like to challenge me on how spending 300 billion dollars to kill thousands of civilians and NO AlQaeda (now it's the Taliban, who did NOTHING to us!) keeps America safe, send me an email and I'll publish it. Please provide proof.
Watch the video below for even more information and
For more information about Straight Talk for Seniors on Health Reform, contact Ken Schwartz at ken.schwartz@ncoa.org.
Archive for July 2010
This is the direct result of 8 years of Bush/Republican policies...
Stats show shrinking middle class
Here are the statistics to prove it:
• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
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Free TV?
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Atdhe
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Hulu
Presented for your enjoyment.
Gaga
Conan
Betty Glover Workout Tape
Reading on a Dream
Ghostbusters
Dialogues
It’s cryin’ time again…
There was an expressed opinion of our wonderfully run local liberry in the VND by Miss Sally. Here’s the url.
The Library is Cool
In it she proclaims the virtues and sad, sad problems our super-duper liberry experiences.
After thanking some people (especially Miss Kathy) and boroughs, townships and even the Highlands School District in two sentences, Miss Sally gets right to the crux of her concern, her opinion of a lack of funding ESPECIALLY saying that
“...the state has once again cut funding for libraries.”
We’ll get back to that in a minute. But, according to Miss Sally, what really keeps “us” going is all of “our” donors who bouy (nice spelling job VND or Miss Sally!) us financially AND emotionally. (Last I checked, it was hard to cash emotions.) So all of you who pay that extra bit in tax to support Miss Sally and Miss Kathy don’t seem as important as all their donors. I’m sure she was taking about the generosity of a couple of local school board members and their spouses who once reminded us that a few cents wasn’t too much to contribute to the liberry. But did you ever wonder just HOW much the families of those concerned board members contributed…and wrote off? Me-Too! Anyway, there’s a graphic included here for your perusal and I’ll allude to it to make a few points. Click the picture to enlarge it and scroll up, down and sideways to see it all. 
Miss Sally claims over her tears, that
“We want to thank our staff, which hasn't had a raise in more than three years, and our volunteers.”
If you’ll notice the two pieces in the graphic, the Salaries and Wages and Benefits from 2005 were $206,440 and the Salaries and Wages and Benefits from 2008 were $247,390. You will also notice that the total staff for 2005 was 9.63 people from adding 0.88, 0.52 and 8.23 and that the staff from 2008 was 9.6 from adding 0.88, 0.88 and 8.72 which really equals 10.48 not 9.6. Not sure where the other 0.88 person went! Be that as it may, I have to ask Miss Sally whether she made another mistake or simply decided to lie about those raises. If the total salaries and wages and benefits went up $40,951 between 2005 and 2008…who got that money? According to Miss Sally, the staff sure didn’t. That only leaves the head liberrian Miss Kathy as the lucky recipient of that entire raise! Sure sounds fair to those working as “staff.” (That’s sarcasm for the sarcastically impaired!)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
But more egregious than the crocodile tears over staff salaries that weren’t raised is her stated fact:
“Unfortunately, the state has once again cut funding for libraries…” (note the use of the word "again!")
Again looking at that pesky bit of government provided fact, we see that our wonderful state provided $115,804 for Miss Kathy’s liberry in 2005 and $138,121 for the same in 2008! Now to be fair, the figures for 2009 aren’t out yet, or rather the public hasn’t been allowed to see them and we’ve all heard how funding was supposedly cut. But maybe some of you don’t remember that Allegheny Government came to the rescue by appropriating additional funding for the Allegheny County Liberries (to the tune of around $600,000 additional of your tax money) of which Miss Kathy’s is one. So the short coming in 2009, if there was one, was compensated for by, hey! We tax payers…again and in addition to what we already “donated.”
Taking a further look at the two graphics you see that liberry visits went up remarkably over three years from an average of 4.09 visits per person to a whopping 4.31! Almost makes the place too crowded to visit, eh?
And Circulation has increased by 30% Sounds good until you realize that the liberry increased their loaner videos by 33% Could that be a coincidence, that more people are watching “The English Patient” or “Lethal Weapon” than reading Moby Dick or Shakespeare? Well, the requests for reference transactions decreased by 10% so those kids that use the liberry either are smarter now to find what they want without asking or just maybe they aren’t looking for material that need references.
And of course, all of this creative math on the part of Miss Sally is to get the dupes of the Highlands School District ready for another tear-jerking telethon to donate another $10,000 to Miss Kathy’s liberry. But Miss Kathy’s salary went up over $40,000 in three years (she’s not a teacher at Highlands is she? LOL!). So why do we have to shell out extra cash so a Head Liberrian can get raises when her staff can’t? And for the record, a Head Liberrian with an MLS (Master of Liberry Science) degree with Miss Kathy’s experience has a salary range (in Pa.) between $55,000 and $88,000 per year (not counting benefits). And guess who pays for those wonderful benefits?
With all these…mistakes? I can’t help but paraphrase Prizzy from “Gone with the Wind”:
“I don’t know nothing ‘bout statin’ no facts!”
I complained a few years back about this fiscally inept run local library (surprised you, right?). I complained that this library was being operated with no concern for fiscal responsibility. The figures in the two graphics confirm my concern.
I don’t know how many of you have increased your wages by at least $20,000 over a three year period. But to have that done for you then still complain about not getting enough money to run a business, non-profit or not, that you are fortunate enough to get paid to run, smacks of a greedy hubris that is only equaled by Wall Street.
The staff, and I presume those are the part-timers, didn’t get a raise over the last 3 years according to Miss Sally. Since figures aren’t in for 2009 and won’t be in for 2010 for quite a while, we have to go by her presumptions that the only person to get a raise between 2006 and 2008 (that’s actually three years, not two) must have been Miss Kathy. And that would have been one whopping raise when the library needed, supposedly, more funding to operate.
And now they will want our school district to kick in more money. For what? Or should I ask, for whom? If the Highlands School Board votes to give the local library ANY SCHOOL TAX MONEY rather than provide for ANY needed services for the students first, the board and superintendent needs to be removed. And as I said before, all it takes to remove a board is a petition to be filed by ten residents to a county judge (sorry, not our own beloved Carole!) for the matter to be examined. If the judge finds the board acted improperly, guess what? They can ALL be removed, new ones elected or temporarily appointed and those who were on the board can NEVER run for school board again.
Just a thought. Enjoy the reading and try not to get mad enough to attend board meetings. Because that will allow the board to continue to give away your money without your consent.
Oh yeah. By the way, they have air conditioning or so says Miss Sally; supposedly cool. I might disagree, though.
garion
Congressional Logic
Update to garion's article:
Jason Almire voted against extending unemployment benefits for long term unemployed that would have helped hundreds of thousands of people and voted against the jobs bill that could have put thousands to work. He then made these statements:
"At some point you have to take a step back and look at the relative value of unemployment benefits versus people looking for jobs." Altmire said business owners in his district (he declined to say which ones) complained of hiring trouble because potential workers would rather stay on the dole."
What his first statement means is that he feels ALL unemployed people have been looking for and now don't look for non-existent jobs, even ones that don't pay enough to allow people to basically exist, Altmire feels these people shouldn't get any help.
His second statement shows where his true concern is; business, not people. Making such a broad, unqualified and unsubstantiated comment shows he believes anyone on unemployment would rather stay there. What an ass!
If those business owners would pay a decent wage, there would be more people available than they could hire. But greed and profits get in their way.
Possibly Pseudo representative Altmire would like to change places with someone who has been unemployed for a year of two to see what it's like to live on virtually nothing while trying to find a job in this area that allows a person to even TRY to make ends meet, let alone exist. We all weren't born with a silver spoon shoved up our butts. Those who were have no idea what it's like to struggle financially. And those who become successful for whatever reason soon forget what it was like when they had nothing.
And as garion said, Altmire had no qualms about debiting future generations of your children for hundreds of billions in illegal war funding (because his business friends will make huge sums of money) but won't help Americans in need. (After putting us in debt fro the next 60 years, all of a sudden Altmire and his ilk pretend to be worried about the deficit?) Does he think this soon-to-be depression from the Wall Street fiasco is a figment of his imagination?
Prices continue to rise; product amounts continue to be reduced for the same prices which will in turn WILL create massive inflation.
The cost of gas hasn't risen; The cost of goods hasn't risen. Yet businesses continue to raise prices and increase their profits while providing less and less value to the consumer. They reduce the quantity and quality of product yet keep the price the same or even raise it. And the brain dead like Jason Altmire think that cutting spending will somehow make things better.
Jason, go back to school and take a basic economics class. This time try to pay attention. If people have money, they'll spend it. If they don't have money, they can't spend what they don't have. They government can spend...and does. It doesn't add to taxes. The wealthy and businesses aren't paying their fair share anyway.The amount unemployment benefits adds to the deficit you're pretending to be oh-so-worried about isn't 1/100th as bad as the funding you wasted on Afghanistan or 1/1000th as bad as what was spent on the illegal war in Iraq. Stop the war and spend the money at home. Or don't you care about people in America who aren't wealthy?
And I thought Melissa Hart was useless. Right now, with the anti-porn, anti-Wecht queen running against you, I see no difference between you. At least with Hart, we knew where she stood even if it was to screw people. You crossed over to the Right to side with big business over the interests of the people you supposedly represent. Instead, you listen only to those well off. I know. I attended some of your "town hall meetings" and watched your body language when conflicting questions were asked of you. Then your relaxing when someone from an affluent neighborhood or a businessman asked something or made a comment. It's a shame more people can't read you. But then, we'd probably have Mary Beth and the same thing we have now...which is nothing.
You are nothing more than a highly paid shill for business and are not worthy of being a Democrat...let alone a concerned human.
Bruce F
ALL Senators and Representatives are Adulterers, Fornicators, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Drug Addicts, Pedophiles and Pederasts (and other things too numerous to mention)!
Is that a fair statement? If members of Congress can use quasi-political logic to determine that all unemployed would rather live off benefits from the government than find a job, it has to follow that all members of Congress are, by their logic, Adulterers, Fornicators, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Drug Addicts, Pederasts, Pedophiles and worse – because of the actions of those in Congress (like Craig, Foley, Gingrich, McCain, to name a few).
How many members of Congress have we discovered who fit right into one or more of those categories over these last years? You know their names. I guess that means all of Congress is like them. (Congressional Logic?)
The list and links below are not even close to complete, but they’ll give you an idea of the thinking of the parasites that make these asinine statements.
Unemployment Extensions
Deficit Eclipses Jobs
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-idiot -Ariz.),
Ben Nelson (D-idiot - Ne.)
Sen. Judd Gregg (R- idiot - N.H.)
Rep. Jason Altmire (D- idiot - Pa.),
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- idiot - Calif.)
Rep. John Linder (R- idiot - Ga.)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R- idiot - Utah)
Rep. Dutch Ruppersburger (D- idiot - Md.)
Rep. Adam Schiff (D- idiot - Calif.)
Jim Clyburn (D- idiot - S.C.)
Kent Conrad (D- idiot - N.D.)
Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D- idiot - Pa.)
These “things” that try to pass for humans want to eliminate basic help for ALL long-term unemployed because they think ALL long-term unemployed would rather sit home and eat crusts of bread than try to find a job. Even if they CAN find a job that pays, at best today, minimum wage with no benefits but with the added Federal, state and local taxes, expenses of healthcare and transportation, not to mention such luxuries as food, shelter and utilities are they better off working?
These Congressional parasites who are granted $174,000 of taxpayer money each year plus perks, expect Americans to find a dwindling number of minimum wage jobs American Business with the complicity of Congress has allowed over the recent years to be outsourced. Americans and their families (values important to Religious Congressional hypocrites) are expected to exist on less than $300 per week. And if they can’t, so what?
None of this really surprises me any longer. Those in power from Obama on down have an agenda of their own and it doesn’t include the American people at least as equals and at least as human. But it DOES include the affluent. Whether the long-term unemployed live or die doesn’t seem to be a concern to these Congressional Senators and Representatives and President who can spend billions to kill American soldiers for the interests of corporations. They proclaim false notions of protecting America from enemies abroad while allowing Congress, the President and Corporate America to "kill" Americans through direct and indirect action, in their own country.
It’s almost Scrooge-like that they believe if (when) these Americans die…
“they had better do it now, and decrease the surplus population!"
John Boehner's America
From dailykos:
by brooklynbadboy
Sun Jul 04, 2010 at 05:00:05 PM PDT
"They're snuffing out the America that I grew up in"
Rep. John Boehner, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 6/29/10
I don't know the America John Boehner grew up in.
I don't know what it's like for a high school graduate to be able to get a union job at a factory and earn enough money to support a wife and kids. I don't know what it's like to be born at a hospital and have my parents rejoice at my birth rather than cower in fear of the bill. I don't know what it's like to have food, clothing and housing expenses constitute reasonable percentage of household income.
I don't know what it's like to grow up as child without fear of gangs, crooked police, and a proliferation of guns and ammo. I don't know what it's like to get a job as a paperboy or delivery boy because those jobs are done by adults. I don't know what it's like to come home to momma or poppa every day because one wage earner can support a family. I don't know what it's like to attend well-financed public schools with well-paid teachers that are the envy of the world. I certainly don't know what it's like to attend an inexpensive private school like John Boehner did because today only the wealthy can afford private school.
I don't know what it's like to have shop class in high school or apprentice programs to learn a trade. I don't know what it's like to be able to simply pick a college, write them a letter, and then attend. One has to hire a consultant these days and I couldn't afford that. I don't know what it's like to have no worries about my parents mortgaging their home to finance my education. I don't know what it's like to get through college without amassing a mountain of debt and ruined credit. I don't know what it's like to have multiple job prospects upon graduation.
I don't know what it's like to look forward to 30 years at one company. I don't even know what it's like to have one profession! I can't even begin to fathom what it must have been like to have an inexpensive, reliable vehicle to go from place to place. Good roads to go from place to place. Inexpensive gas to get from place to place. Public transportation that didn't take 15 percent of a paycheck. I don't know what it's like never having to choose between food and gas to get to work every day.
I don't know what it's like to go to a bank and be offered one type of 30-year fixed rate mortgage. I don't know what it's like not to have to worry about bank fees that cost more than small household appliances. Usury laws. Boy, those must have been nice! There were all those heavy regulations on banks that were in place since the 1930's. John Boehner didn't have to worry about financial crashes during his first 37 years of life because there weren't any. Since deregulation began in 1982, I've had three.
I don't know what it's like to live under a government that looked out for ordinary people. Never have. I don't know what it's like to have a government that did great things like build national highway systems or explore the heavens. Or alleviate poverty in city centers and far-away mountains. I don't know what it's like to never have to worry about the national debt. That's because in John Boehner's America rich people paid taxes. I bet it was really awesome to live in an America that was a net exporter rather than importer. A nation that was a creditor and not a debtor. A nation where the brightest minds and best salaries went into science and engineering rather than banking and advertising.
I don't know what it's like to know there is a pension waiting for me when I retire. I've got to risk it on the stock market or else I'm surely screwed, assuming I'll have any money to save. Maybe if I can overcome 29.9 percent credit card rates, disappearing private sector unions, $100,000 student loans, 15-year adjustable-rate-mortgages, kids at underfunded, inadequate public schools, health insurance that costs more than food, the saving up of the 401(k) and then cashing in of the 401(k) and then saving up of the 401(k) again, maybe I'll just barely have some inkling of the America John Boehner grew up in.
I do know what it's like to have very low taxes. Hooray.
John Boehner grew up in an America ruled by FDR's Democratic majority. I grew up in an America ruled by Ronald Reagan's Republican majority. The America he grew up is already "snuffed out." I doubt he will ever realize that it was people like him who did the snuffing.
