Younze

The next time you read some bullshit opinion (by the editors or letter writers) in the Valley News Dispatch or especially from our turncoat Representative, Jason "vote for big oil subsidies" Altmire and other idiot(s) who claim that we need to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid and the deficit and spending or that "WE" have to sacrifice to pay for the excesses of the Bush Administration, show or send them this.
Ask his honor, Jason, how he can defend this.


Click the image to enlarge to really piss you off.

from kos

John Boehner calls for cuts to Social Security, Medicare

by Jed Lewison

We really have to focus in on that two-thirds of the budget that’s really driving the deficit and the debt to the levels that we see. I’ve said for months that it’s time to have an adult conversation with the American people about the big challenges that face us. When you look at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, these are important programs for tens of millions of Americans. But they’re not sustainable at current levels. They’re not affordable for our kids and grandkids. We’re going to have to make some changes. But I think the first step is laying out the size of the problem, and here in the coming weeks, I expect you’ll see more and more from our team laying out just how big this problem is.

If Boehner really wanted to have an adult conversation, he'd acknowledge that Social Security is in solid shape, and that simply raising the payroll tax cap would secure it's solvency for the forseeable future. And Boehner would also admit that it was President Obama and the Democrats who took the first step towards reducing Medicare costs through the passage of health care reform. Yet instead of working with Democrats, Boehner and his gang attacked them for reducing the cost of Medicare. Even though those cost reductions will not reduce the quality of care, Boehner and the GOP claimed they had reduce benefits.

But now here he is, barely three months after the election, telling the public that the Republican Party thinks now is the time to cut not just Medicare, but also Medicaid and Social Security. Who knows, maybe he wants to return to being minority leader, because falsely claiming that we need to cut Social Security to balance the budget is exactly the kind of thing that should cost him the Speakership and Republicans the majority.

from kos

by Joan McCarter

So you thought the that the House Republicans' obsession with incandescent lightbulbs had something to do with their love of the 19th century. Nostalgia for the days of Dredd Scott, child labor, no collective bargaining, few effective means for women to control their own destinies, and when coal was king.

While it's true that they do seem to have an unnatural attachment to those things, it does seem to come down to that coal being king bit. What's really behind the Republicans' war to keep America from saving money on energy by using more efficient lightbulbs is that the saved money would be going in the wrong pockets.

The real answer as to why the bill’s sponsors are itching to extend the shelf life of incandescent bulbs may not be so ideological. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that in one year, replacing just one 60-watt incandescent bulb with an equivalent CFL results in $7 in energy savings (Microsoft Excel file). Other Department of Energy figures (PDF) state that the average U.S. household has 45 light bulbs across 30 separate fixtures and that there are 116,900,000 households in the country. This means there are 5.26 billion light bulbs across the United States. At present, CFLs hover at a market share just under 30 percent. If that were to go up to 100 percent as a result of the EISA mandate, power companies would stand to lose almost $26 billion in revenue every single year.

Manufacturers like GE have little to lose by introducing and advocating CFLs, because they’re almost six times more expensive than traditional incandescents on average, meaning that over the long term, the decreased frequency with which consumers would have to buy them would be offset by the higher price — and in the short term, such companies would get a massive burst in revenue from Americans switching over. But the energy industry has billions to lose in the conversion — and it’s appealing to its friends in Congress to try to keep that from happening. [emphasis mine]

Yep, that's the good ol' GOP. Always looking out for the little guy who just loves the warm glow of his incandescent bulb.