After a decade of unrestrained Pentagon spending increases, President Obama deserves credit for putting on the brakes. The cuts are a credible down payment on his pledge to reduce projected defense spending by $487 billion in the next decade. They are not going to be enough. In the likely absence of a bipartisan budget pact, a further automatic across-the-board 10-year cut of nearly $500 billion is to take effect starting next January.
Even if a last-minute deal heads that off, the country needs to find more savings. And there is still plenty of room to cut deeper without jeopardizing national security.
Archive | January, 2012
New Strategy, Old Pentagon Budget – NYTimes.com
30 JanTell Congress: Don’t roll back defense spending cuts
29 JanTell Congress: Don’t roll back cuts to defense spending.
It’s undeniable that we have a grotesquely bloated military budget. Even with the reductions, the United States will be on track to spend more on defense than the next ten countries combined.2
Yet Republican Rep. Buck McKeon has just introduced a bill that will substitute a reduction of the federal government workforce by 10% in place of the first year of mandatory cuts.3 And this will likely be the first of many attempts to change the law to shield military spending.
Republicans and some Democrats are now saying that the sky will fall if we do not exempt the Department of Defense from mandatory spending cuts – even as they insist that our deficit is such a problem that we must make brutal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid
Click the link and sign the petition!
In the GPS Case, Issues of Privacy and Technology – NYTimes.com
29 JanTricky question. Read the whole thing.
Focusing on public expectations of privacy means that our rights change when technology does. As Justice Alito blithely said: “New technology may provide increased convenience or security at the expense of privacy, and many people may find the tradeoff worthwhile.”
But aren’t constitutional rights intended to protect our liberty even when the public accepts “increased convenience or security at the expense of privacy”? Fundamental rights remain fundamental in the face of time and new inventions.
via In the GPS Case, Issues of Privacy and Technology – NYTimes.com.
In Defense of Clean Energy – NYTimes.com
29 JanThe lengthy Republican investigation into the failure of a single solar energy company, Solyndra, has already raised doubts about the value and integrity of a multibillion-dollar federal program designed to support renewable energy development. Mr. Obama had the right response: The failure of some public investments to pan out was not reason enough to abandon clean energy or “cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany.” It’s an argument he will have to keep making.
The Mississippi Delta Must Be Restored – NYTimes.com
28 JanThe future of all our shellfish and fisheries — shrimp, oyster, redfish, pompano, speckled trout — hinges on restoration of the delta wetlands using the billions that BP and other companies could end up owing. Since a hurricane’s storm surge is reduced by the wetlands it travels across — by as much as a foot for every two and a half miles, according to some scientists — the longevity of New Orleans also relies on the wetlands’ restoration. How else to get all that grain from the heartland to international markets?
Michael Hudson: Banks Weren’t Meant to Be Like This « naked capitalism
28 JanYet the banks now browbeat governments – not by having ready cash but by threatening to go bust and drag the economy down with them if they are not given control of public tax policy, spending and planning. The process has gone furthest in the United States. Joseph Stiglitz characterizes the Obama administration’s vast transfer of money and pubic debt to the banks as a “privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a ‘partnership’ in which one partner robs the other.” Prof. Bill Black describes banks as becoming criminogenic and innovating “control fraud.” High finance has corrupted regulatory agencies, falsified account-keeping by “mark to model” trickery, and financed the campaigns of its supporters to disable public oversight. The effect is to leave banks in control of how the economy’s allocates its credit and resources. …
Banking has moved so far away from funding industrial growth and economic development that it now benefits primarily at the economy’s expense in a predator and extractive way, not by making productive loans. This is now the great problem confronting our time. Banks now lend mainly to other financial institutions, hedge funds, corporate raiders, insurance companies and real estate, and engage in their own speculation in foreign currency, interest-rate arbitrage, and computer-driven trading programs. Industrial firms bypass the banking system by financing new capital investment out of their own retained earnings, and meet their liquidity needs by issuing their own commercial paper directly. Yet to keep the bank casino winning, global bankers now want governments not only to bail them out but to enable them to renew their failed business plan – and to keep the present debts in place so that creditors will not have to take a loss.
via Michael Hudson: Banks Weren’t Meant to Be Like This « naked capitalism.
Occupying Policy | The Nation
27 JanOne of the most substantial examples of policy efforts within Occupy is a group called Occupy the SEC, which for months has been meeting twice weekly to review the 298-page Volcker Rule through a diligent, line-by-line reading and analysis. The group’s goal is to submit a public comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission examining potential loopholes in the rule. When implemented, the Volcker Rule, part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, will restrict American banks from making certain forms of speculative investments, such as proprietary trading.
C Steele on the Issues (2012) | We The People Reform Coalition
26 JanRobert Steele is running for nomination as the Reform Party’s presidential candidate in 2012. Here’s bullet points on his views in two out of 20+ policy areas. It’s a very promising list and should be read thoughtfully.
Robert Steele on Abortion
* This is a matter best left to the states
* Birth control medications should be available by prescription across the land
* In cases of rape and incest, woman’s right to avoid biological enslavement
Robert Steele on Budget & Economy
* Our biggest problem is a corrupt Congress and the corrupt two-party bi-opoly
* Holding banks accountable for speculation and fraud is essential
* Moratorium on all foreclosures and evictions – insure America from the bottom up
* Full year of paid training for every unemployed person, instead of bailing out banks
* FULL EMPLOYMENT is our primary objective, INFLATION our primary enemy
via C Steele on the Issues (2012) | We The People Reform Coalition.
Wall Street execs are major Obama fundraisers – Contraception – Salon.com
26 JanThe 62 bundlers who work in [the investment banking] industry have raised at least $9.4 million for Obama and the DNC. That “at least” is significant because the Obama campaign specifies only a dollar range in its disclosures, with the top category being “$500,000+.” So the real aggregate figure may be considerably higher.
Among these bundlers are employees of big-name firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays and Citigroup.
It’s worth emphasizing that for all the talk about grass-roots fundraising by the Obama campaign, the bundlers are a major part of the effort. The data released so far shows that at least one-third of all the money raised was sent in by a bundler, according to CRP.
via Wall Street execs are major Obama fundraisers – Contraception – Salon.com.
Truth and Traditions 