Hi There!! My name is Marilyn Love. It is so good to be with Democrats tonight. I always feel like I am at a reunion when I am with you all. I am here tonight to represent my husband, Tom Love. Tom is running for the U.S. Congress District 24 against the incumbent Kenny Marchant. Mr. Marchant is a good man. He also is loyal to the Republican Party and the Republican Agenda. As a congressman his loyalty was to be to his constituents above his loyalty to his party. He has failed his constituents.
Tom feels he will put his constituents first and foremost. He promotes keeping jobs here in America rather than outsourcing to what can be considered "slave camps".
He is for Universal Health Care because all people should have the right to decent health care and should not go bankrupt due to medical bills.
Our country need to provide for more nursing schools. Our shortage of nurses is atrocious. There are nurses who come from various companies who are part-time and do not get benefits that a full-time nurse would. Patients are suffering the consequences for our shortages. Some hospitals cannot admit patients at certain times because they do not have the personnel. Because of "for profit" insurance companies, even insured people are not getting the care they need.
Tom believes our education system must be overhauled. Our children should not be studying to take tests. The ability to read should be fundamental. Teachers should be recompensed for their abilities and skills. Teachers should not have to dig into their own pockets for classroom materials. To attract the best teachers, we must raise our teachers' pay. Colleges should be affordable to all students who can make the grade.
We definitely should support our unions in every way possible.
Tom supports alternative energy resources in place of fossil-fuel use.
This is an exciting and historical year. A woman and a black man are vying for the presidency. Democrats are voting in record numbers. They have woke up from their apathetic sleep.
Americans are sick and tired of worrying about housing, food, gas, and their children's education.
They are tired of the "Class Wars" where the very rich have tax breaks and the middle-class bear the brunt of the taxes appropriated. Poverty in America is at an all-time high.
What happened to the American Dream that has become our American Nightmare??? We assumed our children would be better off than we were. We assumed wrong. Twenty-five percent or more of children over 25 are going back home. They cannot sustain their existence on the wages they are earning.
Tom and I have been married 32 years. He has always held jobs where the public was his primary concern. He will put his whole heart and soul into the position. He will not disappoint or fail his constituents. We will appreciate any support and help in this campaign. Your contributions will be most appreciated. Volunteers will be most welcome. Thank you.
www.tomlovefortexas.com
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Thank You Mr. President
I got the call just before 5pm on a Saturday afternoon; Bill Clinton would be coming to Arlington the next day at 9:30am. Bill would be arriving at Vandergrift Park and we would need to register at Hillary.com to be included. Anxiously, I arrived early the next morning and was thankful it was a clear day, although a bit of a chill was in the air. I immediately saw several people I knew and; as I am running for Congress in the 24th District, I began to shake hands and pass out my name cards. I saw Kyle and his family, Shirley and John, Jeff, George and Ann, the Medranos from Dallas, Danny and many familiar faces from events and days long past.
I was shaking hands and talking to as many voters as I could when I heard, ”Mr. Love, come with me there is a special section for candidates and office holders”. There in front of the barricade was a white pickup truck with a podium and Sergio Deleon talking on a cell phone. I was introduced to Chelsea Clinton’s Stanford University roommate and candidates and office holders from all over the area. We were facing the parking lot and waited with anticipation that only expectation of a President could bring.
About 10am, a motorcade arrived and Bill Clinton looking healthy and, with a measured stride, took his place next to Sergio at the podium. After the introduction, Bill began to speak with the vision and clarity that had convinced so many of us in the 1990’s to vote for our shared vision of the future. I heard my name mentioned as one of the candidates and I was honored to be the representative for my party in the 24th Congressional District.
As I shared Bill’s vision for a bright new tomorrow with Universal Healthcare, better education, and stability at home and in the world; I thought of long ago, the day I first met Bill in Austin on the McGovern campaign in 1972. I had volunteered to block walk and drive people to the polls and met him briefly. Bill had looked so different then from now. Now I saw the wisdom and experience from battles fought and won over 36 years of public service. This I contrasted with the last seven years of on-the-job training and disaster after disaster to the presidency of George W. Bush. We would have that same choice and repeat that same mistake with John McCain. The American Dream was fully illuminated in the crystal clear eyes of the former President.
As I shook his hands after the speech, which both invigorated and filled me with hope and nostalgia, I made my decision that it should be Hillary and Bill once again to lead America to prosperity and the fulfillment of a “Bridge to Tomorrow” and not a “Bridge to Nowhere” that we have had for the last seven long years under George W. Bush.
So I say, thank you Mr. President, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Tom Love for Texas 24
http://www.tomlovefortexas.com/
I was shaking hands and talking to as many voters as I could when I heard, ”Mr. Love, come with me there is a special section for candidates and office holders”. There in front of the barricade was a white pickup truck with a podium and Sergio Deleon talking on a cell phone. I was introduced to Chelsea Clinton’s Stanford University roommate and candidates and office holders from all over the area. We were facing the parking lot and waited with anticipation that only expectation of a President could bring.
About 10am, a motorcade arrived and Bill Clinton looking healthy and, with a measured stride, took his place next to Sergio at the podium. After the introduction, Bill began to speak with the vision and clarity that had convinced so many of us in the 1990’s to vote for our shared vision of the future. I heard my name mentioned as one of the candidates and I was honored to be the representative for my party in the 24th Congressional District.
As I shared Bill’s vision for a bright new tomorrow with Universal Healthcare, better education, and stability at home and in the world; I thought of long ago, the day I first met Bill in Austin on the McGovern campaign in 1972. I had volunteered to block walk and drive people to the polls and met him briefly. Bill had looked so different then from now. Now I saw the wisdom and experience from battles fought and won over 36 years of public service. This I contrasted with the last seven years of on-the-job training and disaster after disaster to the presidency of George W. Bush. We would have that same choice and repeat that same mistake with John McCain. The American Dream was fully illuminated in the crystal clear eyes of the former President.
As I shook his hands after the speech, which both invigorated and filled me with hope and nostalgia, I made my decision that it should be Hillary and Bill once again to lead America to prosperity and the fulfillment of a “Bridge to Tomorrow” and not a “Bridge to Nowhere” that we have had for the last seven long years under George W. Bush.
So I say, thank you Mr. President, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Tom Love for Texas 24
http://www.tomlovefortexas.com/
FISA Fight
FISA Fight Focuses on Trial Lawyers
Recess week has generally been quiet so far on Capitol Hill, except for the sound of press releases still whizzing back and forth on this past weekend's expiration of the terrorist surveillance law.
Democrats say the GOP is simply trying to change the subject away from what they say is their real aim in blocking immunity -- protecting civil liberties -- and away from the Bush administration possibly having to disclose in court that it encouraged phone companies to break the law.
While the releases have been hitting familiar notes -- Republicans say Democrats are putting our security in jeapardy, Democrats say Republicans are lying and trafficking in fear -- the GOP has stepped up its attacks on a familiar class of bogeyman: trial lawyers.
The primary stumbling block to an agreement between the two parties on an update of the law in question, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has been the issue of whether to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications firms for assisting the government in surveillance operations. Republicans are in favor of immunity, saying it is needed to ensure the telecoms will cooperate with the government in the future. Democrats have been opposed, arguing that companies that may have broken the law by providing information without a warrant should not be protected.
In recent days. Republicans have focused more on what they allege is the real reason Democrats oppose immunity -- the opposition of trial lawyers, who the GOP says want to push massive class action suits against the telecom companies.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino made this case last week on Fox News Channel, saying, "The House Democrats are basically doing the bidding of the trial lawyers, who are licking their chops, hoping that they could get a piece of a big class-action lawsuit against these telecommunications companies, which did their patriotic duty to help America in the immediacy following 9/11 when we weren't sure if there would be another attack."
Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) made the same allegation on the Senate floor last Thursday. So does this press release from House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and this one from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The conservative press has also weighed in. The New York Post published an editorial titled, "LAWYERS FIDDLE, AMERICA BURNS." And columnist Robert Novak wrote this week that "The nation's torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits [against telecom companies], has spent months lobbying hard against immunity."
Conservatives and lobbyists for the business community have worked to demonize trial lawyers for years. The best-known D.C. lobbying group for the trial bar actually changed its name in 2006 from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America to the American Association for Justice (though its Web address is still atla.org).
And the AAJ is pushing against the recent spate of charges on the surveillance law. The group put out a release this week specifically responding to Novak's column, saying, "the trial bar did not lobby on the wiretapping bill or request support of either side. Mr. Novak's lack of fact checking cheapens the debate over our national security. The debate over surveillance law should be centered on finding the balance between civil liberties and our nation's national security."
Trial Lawyers and FISA
Sunday, February 24, 2008; B06
Contrary to Robert D. Novak's Feb. 18 column, the trial bar did not lobby members of Congress on any provision of the wiretapping bill. Mr. Novak's lack of fact-checking cheapens the debate over our national security.
The debate over surveillance law should be centered on finding the balance between civil liberties and national security. Just as we are sure that the supporters of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation are motivated by wanting to protect the security of this country, those opposed must be credited for a good-faith effort to keep Americans safe.
JON HABER
Chief Executive
American Association for Justice
Washington
Either way, the surveillance bill's expiration isn't getting much media play this week, as the presidential campaign continues to push other Washington stories off of news budgets. Negotiations -- and fighting -- over a permanent surveillance bill fix will resume next week in earnest when Congress returns, and Republicans can shift back to focusing their attacks on Democratic leaders instead of trial lawyers.
http://us.f816.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=8287_23426658_176513_1654_4577_0_203880_20620_2402487348&Idx=0&YY=66262&y5beta=yes&y5beta=yes&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b&box=Inbox
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE COVERAGE
Simple Question Defines Complex Health Debate
By Christopher LeeWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, February 24, 2008; A10
The defining difference between the Democratic presidential candidates on the top domestic issue in their recent debate and throughout the campaign has been their contrasting views on a seemingly simple question: Should the government require all Americans to have health insurance?
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) says yes, that such a requirement is essential for creating a system in which everyone has health coverage. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) disagrees, arguing that the law should not force anyone to buy insurance he or she cannot afford.
The concept of an "individual mandate" became a lightning rod between the two yesterday. Obama said at an Ohio hospital that Clinton would "have the government force you to buy health insurance, and she said that she'd consider 'going after your wages' if you don't," while Clinton criticized her rival for "perpetuating falsehoods" and labeled an Obama mailing on the issue as "right out of Karl Rove's playbook."
The individual mandate also is emerging as a dominant issue in the larger national debate about how best to overhaul the country's ailing health-care system. It is a key component of both Massachusetts's landmark 2006 health insurance law and Clinton's health-care plan, and was one of the most debated features of a failed plan by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to revamp health care in that state.
Clinton and Obama sparred repeatedly over the subject in their debate Thursday, with Clinton saying that Obama's plan, which would require only that children have coverage, would leave millions of Americans without insurance. She noted that former candidate John Edwards had called for a mandate, too.
Clinton said she and Edwards "took a big risk, because we know it's politically controversial to say we're going to cover everyone. And you chose not to do that. You chose to put forth a health-care plan that will leave out at least 15 million people. . . . I see the results of leaving people out. I am tired of health insurance companies deciding who will live or die in America."
Obama disputed that millions would be left out, saying his plan emphasizes reducing costs so more people can afford insurance. He noted that the requirement in Massachusetts has not meant coverage for all; in fact, state officials had to exempt tens of thousands of people on the grounds that it would be unfair to require them to buy a policy if they could not afford one.
"In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were," Obama said. "They don't have health insurance, and they're paying a fine. . . . But understand that both of us seek to get universal health care. I have a substantive difference with Senator Clinton on how to get there."
On its face, the argument is straightforward. If government makes drivers purchase auto insurance, then why not require everyone to get health insurance, something they will surely need at some point? This view is bolstered by the fact that taxpayers foot the bill for much of the care that those without insurance get in emergency rooms.
But the issue is more complex.
There is a growing political consensus among Democrats that universal health care can be achieved by subsidizing coverage for low-income people, establishing new purchasing pools to help others buy affordable insurance, and requiring most businesses to offer health plans to their workers or pay a fee. Both the Obama and Clinton proposals contain these elements, as well as the option to buy into a public plan. Their most striking difference is on whether to require everyone to get a policy.
"If you want to get to universal coverage, then you have to do the individual mandate," said John Holahan, a health economist at the Urban Institute who is not an adviser to any presidential campaign. "You can do it with a single-payer system," under which one entity, the government, would finance all health care, he said. "But assuming that's [politically] off the charts, then I think that's the only way to do it."
Backers say the lack of a mandate would doom any universal coverage system.
Of the 47 million people in the United States who lack coverage, they argue, some are uninsured by choice and would remain so unless required to join. Many of those most likely to stay uninsured are young, healthy people who probably would not need to go to the doctor -- and whose premiums would help cover the cost of care for those who do.
If only the sick and those most likely to need care buy in, insurers would need to charge higher premiums. That, in turn, would make policies harder to afford and increase pressure on the government to further subsidize the plans, driving up the overall cost.
Also, if large numbers choose to remain uninsured, more than a few would still seek emergency-room care, which some would not be able to pay for. Hospitals that now get billions of dollars from the government to partially offset those costs would fight to hang on to the money, rather than see it redirected toward subsidizing coverage.
Finally, if the government were to prohibit insurance companies from refusing to sell policies to all comers, and if coverage were truly affordable, then many people -- not just the young and healthy -- would have an incentive to hold off buying insurance until they needed it.
"You can't . . . make it voluntary and let people wait until they're really sick, and then come in and insurers can't turn them down," Holahan said.
Critics of the individual mandate say forcing people to obtain insurance is unfair and ineffective. Some Americans will not sign up no matter what, they say. In California, for instance, 25 percent of drivers lack auto insurance even though the state requires it, according to the Insurance Research Council, an industry group. That is higher than the share of Californians without health insurance, about 20 percent.
The government would have to enforce a mandate, perhaps through garnishing wages, opponents say.
In Massachusetts, scofflaws who do not buy health insurance this year face a penalty of as much as $912, imposed on their 2008 state tax return.
Critics also say that a mandate would not necessarily make insurance more affordable and that forcing some Americans to purchase coverage beyond their budgets would be unreasonable, especially if it is seen as a boon for insurance companies.
"They're price-gouging," said Rose Ann DeMoro of the California Nurses Association, which favors a government-financed, single-payer system. "The insurance company is still in control."
Critics also argue that by requiring people to get insurance, the government would have an obligation to ensure that policies meet minimum standards, such as offering dental or prescription drug benefits. Special interests then would lobby Congress every year to require new benefits.
"It's not plausible to believe this package can be defined in an apolitical way," Glen Whitman, an associate professor of economics at California State University at Northridge, argued in an analysis published by the Cato Institute. "Each medical specialty, from oncology to acupuncture, will pressure the legislature to include their services in the package. And as the benefits package grows, so will the premiums."
The individual mandate is a political point of contention across parties.
Shortly before Republican Mitt Romney suspended his run for president, rival Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) unveiled an Internet ad blasting the former Massachusetts governor for signing the state's health law. "Mitt Romney's state health-care plan is a big-government mandate," the ad's announcer says. "It's not very good."
Robert Blendon, a public opinion expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, said Democratic primary voters chiefly have been interested in whether candidates are committed to universal coverage, not in haggling over details. The big fight is likely to be in the general election, he said, noting that a 2006 survey by Harvard and the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that while a large majority of Democrats would accept a mandate, most Republicans oppose the idea.
"If you're a Democratic voter, you want a candidate to do something big," Blendon said. "Republican voters are just saying, 'The last thing we need is a new requirement or a new big spending program.' . . . The Republicans will raise this issue very, very clearly, because all of the Republican candidates who ran support no mandates, either on employers or on individuals."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/23/AR2008022302026_pf.html
By Christopher LeeWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, February 24, 2008; A10
The defining difference between the Democratic presidential candidates on the top domestic issue in their recent debate and throughout the campaign has been their contrasting views on a seemingly simple question: Should the government require all Americans to have health insurance?
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) says yes, that such a requirement is essential for creating a system in which everyone has health coverage. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) disagrees, arguing that the law should not force anyone to buy insurance he or she cannot afford.
The concept of an "individual mandate" became a lightning rod between the two yesterday. Obama said at an Ohio hospital that Clinton would "have the government force you to buy health insurance, and she said that she'd consider 'going after your wages' if you don't," while Clinton criticized her rival for "perpetuating falsehoods" and labeled an Obama mailing on the issue as "right out of Karl Rove's playbook."
The individual mandate also is emerging as a dominant issue in the larger national debate about how best to overhaul the country's ailing health-care system. It is a key component of both Massachusetts's landmark 2006 health insurance law and Clinton's health-care plan, and was one of the most debated features of a failed plan by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to revamp health care in that state.
Clinton and Obama sparred repeatedly over the subject in their debate Thursday, with Clinton saying that Obama's plan, which would require only that children have coverage, would leave millions of Americans without insurance. She noted that former candidate John Edwards had called for a mandate, too.
Clinton said she and Edwards "took a big risk, because we know it's politically controversial to say we're going to cover everyone. And you chose not to do that. You chose to put forth a health-care plan that will leave out at least 15 million people. . . . I see the results of leaving people out. I am tired of health insurance companies deciding who will live or die in America."
Obama disputed that millions would be left out, saying his plan emphasizes reducing costs so more people can afford insurance. He noted that the requirement in Massachusetts has not meant coverage for all; in fact, state officials had to exempt tens of thousands of people on the grounds that it would be unfair to require them to buy a policy if they could not afford one.
"In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were," Obama said. "They don't have health insurance, and they're paying a fine. . . . But understand that both of us seek to get universal health care. I have a substantive difference with Senator Clinton on how to get there."
On its face, the argument is straightforward. If government makes drivers purchase auto insurance, then why not require everyone to get health insurance, something they will surely need at some point? This view is bolstered by the fact that taxpayers foot the bill for much of the care that those without insurance get in emergency rooms.
But the issue is more complex.
There is a growing political consensus among Democrats that universal health care can be achieved by subsidizing coverage for low-income people, establishing new purchasing pools to help others buy affordable insurance, and requiring most businesses to offer health plans to their workers or pay a fee. Both the Obama and Clinton proposals contain these elements, as well as the option to buy into a public plan. Their most striking difference is on whether to require everyone to get a policy.
"If you want to get to universal coverage, then you have to do the individual mandate," said John Holahan, a health economist at the Urban Institute who is not an adviser to any presidential campaign. "You can do it with a single-payer system," under which one entity, the government, would finance all health care, he said. "But assuming that's [politically] off the charts, then I think that's the only way to do it."
Backers say the lack of a mandate would doom any universal coverage system.
Of the 47 million people in the United States who lack coverage, they argue, some are uninsured by choice and would remain so unless required to join. Many of those most likely to stay uninsured are young, healthy people who probably would not need to go to the doctor -- and whose premiums would help cover the cost of care for those who do.
If only the sick and those most likely to need care buy in, insurers would need to charge higher premiums. That, in turn, would make policies harder to afford and increase pressure on the government to further subsidize the plans, driving up the overall cost.
Also, if large numbers choose to remain uninsured, more than a few would still seek emergency-room care, which some would not be able to pay for. Hospitals that now get billions of dollars from the government to partially offset those costs would fight to hang on to the money, rather than see it redirected toward subsidizing coverage.
Finally, if the government were to prohibit insurance companies from refusing to sell policies to all comers, and if coverage were truly affordable, then many people -- not just the young and healthy -- would have an incentive to hold off buying insurance until they needed it.
"You can't . . . make it voluntary and let people wait until they're really sick, and then come in and insurers can't turn them down," Holahan said.
Critics of the individual mandate say forcing people to obtain insurance is unfair and ineffective. Some Americans will not sign up no matter what, they say. In California, for instance, 25 percent of drivers lack auto insurance even though the state requires it, according to the Insurance Research Council, an industry group. That is higher than the share of Californians without health insurance, about 20 percent.
The government would have to enforce a mandate, perhaps through garnishing wages, opponents say.
In Massachusetts, scofflaws who do not buy health insurance this year face a penalty of as much as $912, imposed on their 2008 state tax return.
Critics also say that a mandate would not necessarily make insurance more affordable and that forcing some Americans to purchase coverage beyond their budgets would be unreasonable, especially if it is seen as a boon for insurance companies.
"They're price-gouging," said Rose Ann DeMoro of the California Nurses Association, which favors a government-financed, single-payer system. "The insurance company is still in control."
Critics also argue that by requiring people to get insurance, the government would have an obligation to ensure that policies meet minimum standards, such as offering dental or prescription drug benefits. Special interests then would lobby Congress every year to require new benefits.
"It's not plausible to believe this package can be defined in an apolitical way," Glen Whitman, an associate professor of economics at California State University at Northridge, argued in an analysis published by the Cato Institute. "Each medical specialty, from oncology to acupuncture, will pressure the legislature to include their services in the package. And as the benefits package grows, so will the premiums."
The individual mandate is a political point of contention across parties.
Shortly before Republican Mitt Romney suspended his run for president, rival Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) unveiled an Internet ad blasting the former Massachusetts governor for signing the state's health law. "Mitt Romney's state health-care plan is a big-government mandate," the ad's announcer says. "It's not very good."
Robert Blendon, a public opinion expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, said Democratic primary voters chiefly have been interested in whether candidates are committed to universal coverage, not in haggling over details. The big fight is likely to be in the general election, he said, noting that a 2006 survey by Harvard and the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that while a large majority of Democrats would accept a mandate, most Republicans oppose the idea.
"If you're a Democratic voter, you want a candidate to do something big," Blendon said. "Republican voters are just saying, 'The last thing we need is a new requirement or a new big spending program.' . . . The Republicans will raise this issue very, very clearly, because all of the Republican candidates who ran support no mandates, either on employers or on individuals."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/23/AR2008022302026_pf.html
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Idea #1 The Environment: Hydrogen
Subject:
Oil at $100? Let’s use hydrogen instead!
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008
Our economy. Steve Dunston 4624 Byron Circle Irving, TX 75038
Hydrogen is the most common element in the entire universe and there are several different car companies that have already developed hydrogen-powered cars. These cars are greener than green; there are no emissions that are harmful to our environment. Hydrogen as a fuel is starting to be used in forklift trucks in warehouses; why not in our cars? All we need is a truly accessible fuel supply distribution system, so let's encourage our country's oil companies to put hydrogen refueling pumps in every service station that sells their branded product. Having all our oil companies in the hydrogen distribution business should assure availability and price competition in the marketplace.
I think oil companies might welcome the opportunity to move into a new segment of the transportation fuel energy business by modifying their “gas stations” ventures, that if completely unchanged will be in decline. To speed the process along and as an extra incentive for the oil companies to act quickly, our government could create an excess profits tax on oil company profits, but completely exempt from that tax, any oil company that spends more than fifty percent of their profits installing a minimum of two hydrogen refueling pumps and storage capability at all of their service stations around the country. That should help us to make the transition to hydrogen fuel, very quickly. Once we get started, oil prices should drop dramatically and that will help our economy.
Steve Dunston
4624 Byron Circle
Irving, TX 75038
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom: The problem with hydrogen has been distrobution. This can be solved with a Carbon Tax on pollutors. If they pollute, we should tax them and make their goods and services more expensive to have the Carbon Footprint.
We also need to use our tax policy to institute an Excess Profits Tax on the major oil companies; however, if they install at least 2 hydrogen fuel tanks per service station, and provide a system of refueling electrioc cars, they would get tax credits that would recoup most of the tax.
We can and should write the tax code to provide the corporate behavior within the markets that fuels a "Green Color" technology and the new job creation that would go with it.
Oil at $100? Let’s use hydrogen instead!
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008
Our economy. Steve Dunston 4624 Byron Circle Irving, TX 75038
Hydrogen is the most common element in the entire universe and there are several different car companies that have already developed hydrogen-powered cars. These cars are greener than green; there are no emissions that are harmful to our environment. Hydrogen as a fuel is starting to be used in forklift trucks in warehouses; why not in our cars? All we need is a truly accessible fuel supply distribution system, so let's encourage our country's oil companies to put hydrogen refueling pumps in every service station that sells their branded product. Having all our oil companies in the hydrogen distribution business should assure availability and price competition in the marketplace.
I think oil companies might welcome the opportunity to move into a new segment of the transportation fuel energy business by modifying their “gas stations” ventures, that if completely unchanged will be in decline. To speed the process along and as an extra incentive for the oil companies to act quickly, our government could create an excess profits tax on oil company profits, but completely exempt from that tax, any oil company that spends more than fifty percent of their profits installing a minimum of two hydrogen refueling pumps and storage capability at all of their service stations around the country. That should help us to make the transition to hydrogen fuel, very quickly. Once we get started, oil prices should drop dramatically and that will help our economy.
Steve Dunston
4624 Byron Circle
Irving, TX 75038
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom: The problem with hydrogen has been distrobution. This can be solved with a Carbon Tax on pollutors. If they pollute, we should tax them and make their goods and services more expensive to have the Carbon Footprint.
We also need to use our tax policy to institute an Excess Profits Tax on the major oil companies; however, if they install at least 2 hydrogen fuel tanks per service station, and provide a system of refueling electrioc cars, they would get tax credits that would recoup most of the tax.
We can and should write the tax code to provide the corporate behavior within the markets that fuels a "Green Color" technology and the new job creation that would go with it.
I Need Your Ideas
I want to run a campaign that talks with Texans, not one that talks at Texans. Too many times, we have allowed politics to be about slogans and manufactured news articles, but ignore the problems of environment, healthcare, and the economy that truly effect our daily lives. Many of you have original and creative ideas that make the phrase "We The People" not just a line from history, but a real and working concept to solve America's problem and bring us to the 21st Century.
You are and will always be the government, not some politician in Washington or Austin that is out of touch and tells you what they think you want to hear, but does in fact not listen to what problems we as individuals and as a community face. They only really listen to the lobbyists and do not hear Texans at all.
Please send me your suggestions and your ideas to: www.tomlove4Texas@sbcglobal.net . Let's discuss and create real solutions to real problems and bring about real change for our children's future. We are at that unique point in history that will determine if we can achieve a bright future or more of the same with the same results and limited success. I will post the ideas on my website, so we can have a true discussion.
Tom Love
Po Box 7231
Arlington, Tx 75005-7231
http://www.tomlovefortexas.com/
You are and will always be the government, not some politician in Washington or Austin that is out of touch and tells you what they think you want to hear, but does in fact not listen to what problems we as individuals and as a community face. They only really listen to the lobbyists and do not hear Texans at all.
Please send me your suggestions and your ideas to: www.tomlove4Texas@sbcglobal.net . Let's discuss and create real solutions to real problems and bring about real change for our children's future. We are at that unique point in history that will determine if we can achieve a bright future or more of the same with the same results and limited success. I will post the ideas on my website, so we can have a true discussion.
Tom Love
Po Box 7231
Arlington, Tx 75005-7231
http://www.tomlovefortexas.com/
Thursday, February 14, 2008
ECONOMY:TOO SHORT A LIFELINE
The nation is in a mortgage crisis.
More than one out of every 14 mortgages "are delinquent as of the end of September -- a 30-year high." According to the Federal Reserve, "another 2 million families could face foreclosure in the next 2 years." In an effort to stem this tide, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson this week announced "Project Lifeline," a voluntary private sector initiative. Six major mortgage lenders have agreed to send letters "to truant borrowers detailing how they can 'pause' the foreclosure process for 30 days while the bank evaluates whether they're eligible to modify their loan on better terms." Yet like other Bush administration "solutions" to the economic crisis, this one is nothing more than a short-term "voluntary breather" and would perhaps be more aptly called "Project Band-Aid." "Homeowners at risk of foreclosure are floating 50 feet from shore while Project Lifeline throws them a 30-foot rope," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). "We need a plan that goes further."
MORE THAN MARKET ADJUSTMENT: Earlier this week, the White House released the rosy President's Economic Report. "The best course of action is often to simply allow markets to adjust," the report said. "Markets naturally self-correct, rewarding good strategies and punishing bad ones. ... [A]ny government actions mitigating the outcomes of risky behavior may create perverse incentives for reckless decisions by borrowers and investors who may come to rely on government interventions." But the current mortgage crisis needs more than this voluntary, markets-based approach. As David M. Abromowitz and Andrew Jakabovics at the Center for American Progress note, "Markets will do their part, but not if they are frozen by a freefall in home prices that sucks in otherwise responsible homeowners. Homes are not just another commodity; when widespread foreclosures drive whole neighborhoods into rapid decline." During the 30-day pause, banks will presumably modify the loans to make them more affordable in the long term. But if history is any guide, this outcome is unlikely. Lenders did very few loan modifications in 2007, at the height of the foreclosure crisis. Moody's, the rating agency, notes that at the end of September, just 3.5 percent of loans reset in 2007 had been modified. "What they actually will do is anybody's guess," The New York Times concludes about Bush's voluntary program.
TOO LATE FOR 'TRUST ME': Last May, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) convened a meeting of major banks and loan servicers that "promised to 'create a permanent solution,' wherever possible, for troubled subprime borrowers." When the industry fell through on those promises, the Bush administration announced "Hope Now" last fall, another voluntary initiative to "delay interest rate increases for borrowers who hadn't yet gone into default." Project Lifeline involves those same lenders. "If the industry had kept the promises they made last May, the other two efforts might not have been needed," writes The New York Times. "So it's unclear why the administration continues to believe that urging the industry to do more is the most effective way to cope with the foreclosure crisis." Additionally, over the past two months, just 36,000 borrowers have taken advantage of a Hope Now toll-free hotline helping borrowers work out loan troubles. But "fewer than a third of those have actually gotten far enough along in the conversation to get advice for a loan workout." According to Carrie Guzman who works for ACORN and advocates for people dealing with foreclosure, Project Lifeline is too little, too late. "Usually once you've hit that 90 days, it's less than 30 days before your sale of share is set," said Guzman, "and the way this plan is written, it excludes people that are within 30 days of the sale, so it gives people very little time to be able to respond.
"LENGTHENING THE LIFELINE: Today, Paulson will be testifying before the Senate Banking Committee. "The members of the committee should quickly disabuse him of any notion he may have that he's doing enough," writes The New York Times. "He should be asked to explain, specifically, what will be different at the end of Project Lifeline's 30-day timeout." American Progress has proposed two plans to restore equilibrium to the housing market. First is the SAFE loan program, which "is modeled after the New Deal's successful Home Owners' Loan Corporation" but uses existing government resources to "purchase pools of loans at current value and refinance those loans that are in default or have negative equity into fully amortizing, fixed-rate loans based on the current value of the property." Second is the Great American Dream Neighborhood Stabilization, or GARDNS, Fund, which would help homeowners in low- and middle-income neighborhoods by providing "money to local housing authorities and non-profit organizations to buy foreclosed properties from banks and return them to productive use as affordable housing."
Center for American Progress Action Fund"
More than one out of every 14 mortgages "are delinquent as of the end of September -- a 30-year high." According to the Federal Reserve, "another 2 million families could face foreclosure in the next 2 years." In an effort to stem this tide, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson this week announced "Project Lifeline," a voluntary private sector initiative. Six major mortgage lenders have agreed to send letters "to truant borrowers detailing how they can 'pause' the foreclosure process for 30 days while the bank evaluates whether they're eligible to modify their loan on better terms." Yet like other Bush administration "solutions" to the economic crisis, this one is nothing more than a short-term "voluntary breather" and would perhaps be more aptly called "Project Band-Aid." "Homeowners at risk of foreclosure are floating 50 feet from shore while Project Lifeline throws them a 30-foot rope," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). "We need a plan that goes further."
MORE THAN MARKET ADJUSTMENT: Earlier this week, the White House released the rosy President's Economic Report. "The best course of action is often to simply allow markets to adjust," the report said. "Markets naturally self-correct, rewarding good strategies and punishing bad ones. ... [A]ny government actions mitigating the outcomes of risky behavior may create perverse incentives for reckless decisions by borrowers and investors who may come to rely on government interventions." But the current mortgage crisis needs more than this voluntary, markets-based approach. As David M. Abromowitz and Andrew Jakabovics at the Center for American Progress note, "Markets will do their part, but not if they are frozen by a freefall in home prices that sucks in otherwise responsible homeowners. Homes are not just another commodity; when widespread foreclosures drive whole neighborhoods into rapid decline." During the 30-day pause, banks will presumably modify the loans to make them more affordable in the long term. But if history is any guide, this outcome is unlikely. Lenders did very few loan modifications in 2007, at the height of the foreclosure crisis. Moody's, the rating agency, notes that at the end of September, just 3.5 percent of loans reset in 2007 had been modified. "What they actually will do is anybody's guess," The New York Times concludes about Bush's voluntary program.
TOO LATE FOR 'TRUST ME': Last May, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) convened a meeting of major banks and loan servicers that "promised to 'create a permanent solution,' wherever possible, for troubled subprime borrowers." When the industry fell through on those promises, the Bush administration announced "Hope Now" last fall, another voluntary initiative to "delay interest rate increases for borrowers who hadn't yet gone into default." Project Lifeline involves those same lenders. "If the industry had kept the promises they made last May, the other two efforts might not have been needed," writes The New York Times. "So it's unclear why the administration continues to believe that urging the industry to do more is the most effective way to cope with the foreclosure crisis." Additionally, over the past two months, just 36,000 borrowers have taken advantage of a Hope Now toll-free hotline helping borrowers work out loan troubles. But "fewer than a third of those have actually gotten far enough along in the conversation to get advice for a loan workout." According to Carrie Guzman who works for ACORN and advocates for people dealing with foreclosure, Project Lifeline is too little, too late. "Usually once you've hit that 90 days, it's less than 30 days before your sale of share is set," said Guzman, "and the way this plan is written, it excludes people that are within 30 days of the sale, so it gives people very little time to be able to respond.
"LENGTHENING THE LIFELINE: Today, Paulson will be testifying before the Senate Banking Committee. "The members of the committee should quickly disabuse him of any notion he may have that he's doing enough," writes The New York Times. "He should be asked to explain, specifically, what will be different at the end of Project Lifeline's 30-day timeout." American Progress has proposed two plans to restore equilibrium to the housing market. First is the SAFE loan program, which "is modeled after the New Deal's successful Home Owners' Loan Corporation" but uses existing government resources to "purchase pools of loans at current value and refinance those loans that are in default or have negative equity into fully amortizing, fixed-rate loans based on the current value of the property." Second is the Great American Dream Neighborhood Stabilization, or GARDNS, Fund, which would help homeowners in low- and middle-income neighborhoods by providing "money to local housing authorities and non-profit organizations to buy foreclosed properties from banks and return them to productive use as affordable housing."
Center for American Progress Action Fund"
Totally Spent
By ROBERT B. REICH
Berkeley, Calif.
WE’RE sliding into recession, or worse, and Washington is turning to the normal remedies for economic downturns. But the normal remedies are not likely to work this time, because this isn’t a normal downturn.
The problem lies deeper. It is the culmination of three decades during which American consumers have spent beyond their means. That era is now coming to an end. Consumers have run out of ways to keep the spending binge going.
The only lasting remedy, other than for Americans to accept a lower standard of living and for businesses to adjust to a smaller economy, is to give middle- and lower-income Americans more buying power — and not just temporarily.
Much of the current debate is irrelevant. Even with more tax breaks for business like accelerated depreciation, companies won’t invest in more factories or equipment when demand is dropping for products and services across the board, as it is now. And temporary fixes like a stimulus package that would give households a one-time cash infusion won’t get consumers back to the malls, because consumers know the assistance is temporary. The problems most consumers face are permanent, so they are likely to pocket the extra money instead of spending it.
Another Fed rate cut might unfreeze credit markets and give consumers access to somewhat cheaper loans, but there’s no going back to the easy money of a few years ago. Lenders and borrowers have been badly burned, and the values of houses and other assets are dropping faster than interest rates can be lowered.
The underlying problem has been building for decades. America’s median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Most of what’s been earned in America since then has gone to the richest 5 percent.
Yet the rich devote a smaller percentage of their earnings to buying things than the rest of us because, after all, they’re rich. They already have most of what they want. Instead of buying, and thus stimulating the American economy, the rich are more likely to invest their earnings wherever around the world they can get the highest return.
The problem has been masked for years as middle- and lower-income Americans found ways to live beyond their paychecks. But now they have run out of ways.
The first way was to send more women into paid work. Most women streamed into the work force in the 1970s less because new professional opportunities opened up to them than because they had to prop up family incomes. The percentage of American working mothers with school-age children has almost doubled since 1970 — to more than 70 percent. But there’s a limit to how many mothers can maintain paying jobs.
So Americans turned to a second way of spending beyond their hourly wages. They worked more hours. The typical American now works more each year than he or she did three decades ago. Americans became veritable workaholics, putting in 350 more hours a year than the average European, more even than the notoriously industrious Japanese.
But there’s also a limit to how many hours Americans can put into work, so Americans turned to a third way of spending beyond their wages. They began to borrow. With housing prices rising briskly through the 1990s and even faster from 2002 to 2006, they turned their homes into piggy banks by refinancing home mortgages and taking out home-equity loans. But this third strategy also had a built-in limit. With the bursting of the housing bubble, the piggy banks are closing.
The binge seems to be over. We’re finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.
The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the wages of the bottom two-thirds of Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway.
A larger earned-income tax credit, financed by a higher marginal income tax on top earners, is required. The tax credit functions like a reverse income tax. Enlarging it would mean giving workers at the bottom a bigger wage supplement, as well as phasing it out at a higher wage. The current supplement for a worker with two children who earns up to $16,000 a year is about $5,000. That amount declines as earnings increase and is eliminated at about $38,000. It should be increased to, say, $8,000 at the low end and phased out at an income of $46,000.
We also need stronger unions, especially in the local service sector that’s sheltered from global competition. Employees should be able to form a union without the current protracted certification process that gives employers too much opportunity to intimidate or coerce them. Workers should be able to decide whether to form a union with a simple majority vote.
And employers who fire workers for trying to organize should have to pay substantial fines. Right now, the typical penalty is back pay for the worker, plus interest — a slap on the wrist.
Over the longer term, inequality can be reversed only through better schools for children in lower- and moderate-income communities. This will require, at the least, good preschools, fewer students per classroom and better pay for teachers in such schools, in order to attract the teaching talent these students need.
These measures are necessary to give Americans enough buying power to keep the American economy going. They are also needed to overcome widening inequality, and thereby keep America in one piece.
Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author, most recently, of “Supercapitalism.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?ei=5087&em=&en=28af38a856305f61&ex=1203138000&pagewanted=print
Berkeley, Calif.
WE’RE sliding into recession, or worse, and Washington is turning to the normal remedies for economic downturns. But the normal remedies are not likely to work this time, because this isn’t a normal downturn.
The problem lies deeper. It is the culmination of three decades during which American consumers have spent beyond their means. That era is now coming to an end. Consumers have run out of ways to keep the spending binge going.
The only lasting remedy, other than for Americans to accept a lower standard of living and for businesses to adjust to a smaller economy, is to give middle- and lower-income Americans more buying power — and not just temporarily.
Much of the current debate is irrelevant. Even with more tax breaks for business like accelerated depreciation, companies won’t invest in more factories or equipment when demand is dropping for products and services across the board, as it is now. And temporary fixes like a stimulus package that would give households a one-time cash infusion won’t get consumers back to the malls, because consumers know the assistance is temporary. The problems most consumers face are permanent, so they are likely to pocket the extra money instead of spending it.
Another Fed rate cut might unfreeze credit markets and give consumers access to somewhat cheaper loans, but there’s no going back to the easy money of a few years ago. Lenders and borrowers have been badly burned, and the values of houses and other assets are dropping faster than interest rates can be lowered.
The underlying problem has been building for decades. America’s median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Most of what’s been earned in America since then has gone to the richest 5 percent.
Yet the rich devote a smaller percentage of their earnings to buying things than the rest of us because, after all, they’re rich. They already have most of what they want. Instead of buying, and thus stimulating the American economy, the rich are more likely to invest their earnings wherever around the world they can get the highest return.
The problem has been masked for years as middle- and lower-income Americans found ways to live beyond their paychecks. But now they have run out of ways.
The first way was to send more women into paid work. Most women streamed into the work force in the 1970s less because new professional opportunities opened up to them than because they had to prop up family incomes. The percentage of American working mothers with school-age children has almost doubled since 1970 — to more than 70 percent. But there’s a limit to how many mothers can maintain paying jobs.
So Americans turned to a second way of spending beyond their hourly wages. They worked more hours. The typical American now works more each year than he or she did three decades ago. Americans became veritable workaholics, putting in 350 more hours a year than the average European, more even than the notoriously industrious Japanese.
But there’s also a limit to how many hours Americans can put into work, so Americans turned to a third way of spending beyond their wages. They began to borrow. With housing prices rising briskly through the 1990s and even faster from 2002 to 2006, they turned their homes into piggy banks by refinancing home mortgages and taking out home-equity loans. But this third strategy also had a built-in limit. With the bursting of the housing bubble, the piggy banks are closing.
The binge seems to be over. We’re finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.
The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the wages of the bottom two-thirds of Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway.
A larger earned-income tax credit, financed by a higher marginal income tax on top earners, is required. The tax credit functions like a reverse income tax. Enlarging it would mean giving workers at the bottom a bigger wage supplement, as well as phasing it out at a higher wage. The current supplement for a worker with two children who earns up to $16,000 a year is about $5,000. That amount declines as earnings increase and is eliminated at about $38,000. It should be increased to, say, $8,000 at the low end and phased out at an income of $46,000.
We also need stronger unions, especially in the local service sector that’s sheltered from global competition. Employees should be able to form a union without the current protracted certification process that gives employers too much opportunity to intimidate or coerce them. Workers should be able to decide whether to form a union with a simple majority vote.
And employers who fire workers for trying to organize should have to pay substantial fines. Right now, the typical penalty is back pay for the worker, plus interest — a slap on the wrist.
Over the longer term, inequality can be reversed only through better schools for children in lower- and moderate-income communities. This will require, at the least, good preschools, fewer students per classroom and better pay for teachers in such schools, in order to attract the teaching talent these students need.
These measures are necessary to give Americans enough buying power to keep the American economy going. They are also needed to overcome widening inequality, and thereby keep America in one piece.
Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author, most recently, of “Supercapitalism.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?ei=5087&em=&en=28af38a856305f61&ex=1203138000&pagewanted=print
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Subject: AN OPEN LETTER TO SMU PETITION SIGNERS February 11, 2008
I am the organizer of the petition that you signed at www.protectSMU.org. I am also a United Methodist minister and research psychologist living in New York City who graduated from Perkins School of Theology at SMU.
Our petition continues to grow. There are now over 11,300 signers representing every state and several nations, including twenty-nine United Methodist bishops, hundreds of graduates of SMU and thousands of clergy, church members, and people of conscience. Many thanks for your support!
There is every indication that the George W. Bush Foundation is moving full steam ahead to establish a partisan think tank at SMU. We believe the signing of a 99 year lease is not far away.
Below is a letter five South Central Jurisdiction delegates sent to the George W. Bush Foundation on January 31, 2008. We have received no response as of today.+ + + + + + + + + +Mr. Don EvansGWB FoundationFasken CenterTower One500 West Texas, Suite 960Midland, Texas 79701We have been informed that the College of Bishops of the South Central Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church has rendered a “legal interpretation” of the action of the Mission Council.This interpretation affirms that the Mission Council, a body of the South Central Jurisdiction, has the right to approve the lease of the property owned by the South Central Jurisdiction for the building of the George W. Bush library and think tank institute at SMU.This letter is written to assert our belief that the College of Bishops does not have the authority to make such an interpretation according to the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church.Division Four, Paragraph 56, Article II, 4. (Page 38) of the Constitution of the United Methodist Church states: “The Judicial Council shall have authority to hear and determine the legality of any action taken therein by any jurisdictional conference board or body”Since the interpretation of the Mission Council action (a body of the jurisdictional conference), may be appealed by one third of the members of the Jurisdictional Conference (note Par. 56, Article II, 4.), this letter is also to inform you of our intention, as delegates of the South Central Jurisdictional Conference, to offer a motion to the Jurisdictional Conference, meeting in July, 2008, that an appeal for an interpretation be made to the Judicial Council of The United Methodist Church.We believe that any signed lease between SMU and the George W. Bush Library Foundation substantiated by a violation of the legal processes of The United Methodist Church, (as defined in its Discipline), prior to this Judicial appeal and interpretation, is an ill-advised action that breaches the laws, rules, regulations and tradition of our church. Signed,SCJ DELEGATEScc: President of SMU, R. Gerald TurnerChair of the Trustees at SMU, Carl Sewell+ + + + + + + + + +THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER AND HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:We need your help to build a legal and educational campaign fund. Given the most recent actions by the George W. Bush Foundation, we need to secure funding for lawyers to help us, as well as to educate the church about this issue. Contributions can be sent to Rev. Robert Weathers, 2420 Willington Avenue, Fort Worth, Texas 76110. Rev. Weathers is a highly regarded member of the Central Texas Annual Conference and a former District Superintendent. Please make checks out to “Protect SMU Fund.”
Below is a list of all the duly elected members of the South Central Jurisdictional Conference, representing the 1.83 million United Methodists in the region. These representatives will meet in Dallas from July 15-19. They can say NO to Bush and refuse to allow him to use the land at SMU, if they are allowed to vote. About 40 percent of the delegates are likely to vote against the partisan Bush institute as of today. We need to inform and recruit 10 percent plus 1 of the remaining delegates to block the project.
Link: http://scj.umportal.org/myFolder/contentManagerImages/52/SCJ_Delegates_2008.pdf Call your Annual Conference office and ask for the addresses and/or phone numbers of the delegates from your Conference to the Jurisdictional Conference. This will include both General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference delegates. If these United Methodist Christians truly understand what Bush is requiring, they will vote against the project. Write these delegates (or call them) and ask that they not ratify the report for the Jurisdictional Mission Council which includes the Mission Council's approval of SMU leasing part of its property (owned by the South Central Jurisdiction) for the building of the George W. Bush library and partisan institute. The 2004 South Central Jurisdictional Journal says: "The Council shall be subject to the following and specific limitations of authority: All actions taken by The Council shall be valid and in full effect within the South Central Jurisdiction until the next regular session of The(Jurisdictional) Conference.....The chairperson of The Council shall submit to each regular quadrennial meeting of the Conference a written report of all actions taken by The Council during the quadrennium" (p. 101).Read the articles below to give you more information regarding the history and inside workings which led to this unfortunate decision. Also forward these articles to your Jurisdictional Conference delegates.
Updated links to information on the SMU Bush project:
http://media.www.smudailycampus.com/media/storage/paper949/news/2008/01/31/News/Bush-Library.Opponents.Up.Ante.With.New.Letter-3179148.shtml
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/AP/story/400936.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/122535/135/502/446980
http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2072519&ct=5006365
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/faith-matters/2008/2/4/tempest-in-a-texas-teapot.html
http://cbs11tv.com/education/SMU.bush.library.2.645905.html
http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=3112
http://media.www.smudailycampus.com/media/storage/paper949/news/2008/01/17/Opinion/The-fantastic.Failure.Institute.Will.Undermine.Smu-3155803.shtml
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=196
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=171
5. Continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign the petition. Each person is important. We need to tell officials of SMU and the UMC at every level that we find this association with George W. Bush unacceptable.
With best regards,Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D.
+ + + + + + + + + +
South Central Jurisdiction BishopsDALLAS EPISCOPAL AREABishop Alfred L. NorrisP.O. Box 866128Plano, TX 75086-6128Nationwide Toll Free Number: (800) 969-8201Phone: (214) 522-6741Fax: (214) 528-4435Email: bishop@ntcumc.orgNORTH TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEFORT WORTH EPISCOPAL AREABishop Ben R. Chamness464 Bailey AvenueFort Worth, TX 76107-2153Nationwide Toll Free Number: (800) 460-8622Phone: (817) 877-5222Fax: (817) 332-4609Email: bishop@ctcumc.orgCENTRAL TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEHOUSTON EPISCOPAL AREABishop Janice Riggle Huie5215 South Main StreetHouston, TX 77002-9792Phone: (713) 521-9383Fax: (713) 529-7736Email: Bishop.Huie@txcumc.orgTEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEKANSAS EPISCOPAL AREABishop Scott J. Jones9440 East Boston, Suite 160Wichita, KS 67207-3603Nationwide Toll Free Number: (800) 745-2350Phone: (316) 686-0600Fax: (316) 684-0044Email: kansasbishop@kswestumc.orgKANSAS EAST ANNUAL CONFERENCEKANSAS WEST ANNUAL CONFERENCELOUISIANA EPISCOPAL AREABishop William W. Hutchinson527 North BoulevardBaton Rouge, LA 70802-5700Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (888) 239-5286Phone: (225) 346-1646 ext 212Fax: (225) 387-3662Email: lcumc@bellsouth.netLOUISIANA ANNUAL CONFERENCEMISSOURI EPISCOPAL AREABishop Robert C. Schnase3601 Amron CourtColumbia, MO 65202Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (877) 736-1806Phone: (573) 441-1770Fax: (573) 441-0765Email: DCurry@moumethodist.orgMISSOURI ANNUAL CONFERENCENEBRASKA EPISCOPAL AREABishop Ann Brookshire Sherer2641 North 49th StreetLincoln, NE 68504-2899Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (800) 435-6107Phone: (402) 466-4955Fax: (402) 466-6793Email: bishopsherer@umcneb.orgNEBRASKA ANNUAL CONFERENCENORTHWEST TEXAS-NEW MEXICO EPISCOPAL AREABishop D. Max Whitfield11816 Lomas Boulevard, NEAlbuquerque, NM 87112-5614Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (800) 678-8786Phone: (505) 255-9361Fax: (505) 255-8738Email: mbelu@nmconfum.comNEW MEXICO ANNUAL CONFERENCENORTHWEST TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEOKLAHOMA EPISCOPAL AREABishop Robert E. Hayes, Jr.P.O. Box 60467Oklahoma City, OK 73146-0467Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (800) 231-4160Phone: (405) 530-2025Fax: (405) 350-2040Email: cberry@okumc.orgOKLAHOMA ANNUAL CONFERENCEOKLAHOMA INDIAN MISSIONARY ANNUAL CONFERENCESAN ANTONIO EPISCOPAL AREABishop Joel N. MartinezP.O. Box 781688San Antonio, TX 78278-1688Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (888) 349 -4191Phone: (210) 408-4500Fax: (210) 408-4501Email: bishop@umcswtx.orgRIO GRANDE ANNUAL CONFERENCESOUTHWEST TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEARKANSAS EPISCOPAL AREABishop Charles N. Crutchfield2 Trudie Kibbe Reed DriveLittle Rock, AR 72202-3770Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (877) 646-1816Phone: (501) 324-8001Fax: (501) 324-8021Email: bishopcnc@arumc.orgARKANSAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE---
Our petition continues to grow. There are now over 11,300 signers representing every state and several nations, including twenty-nine United Methodist bishops, hundreds of graduates of SMU and thousands of clergy, church members, and people of conscience. Many thanks for your support!
There is every indication that the George W. Bush Foundation is moving full steam ahead to establish a partisan think tank at SMU. We believe the signing of a 99 year lease is not far away.
Below is a letter five South Central Jurisdiction delegates sent to the George W. Bush Foundation on January 31, 2008. We have received no response as of today.+ + + + + + + + + +Mr. Don EvansGWB FoundationFasken CenterTower One500 West Texas, Suite 960Midland, Texas 79701We have been informed that the College of Bishops of the South Central Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church has rendered a “legal interpretation” of the action of the Mission Council.This interpretation affirms that the Mission Council, a body of the South Central Jurisdiction, has the right to approve the lease of the property owned by the South Central Jurisdiction for the building of the George W. Bush library and think tank institute at SMU.This letter is written to assert our belief that the College of Bishops does not have the authority to make such an interpretation according to the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church.Division Four, Paragraph 56, Article II, 4. (Page 38) of the Constitution of the United Methodist Church states: “The Judicial Council shall have authority to hear and determine the legality of any action taken therein by any jurisdictional conference board or body”Since the interpretation of the Mission Council action (a body of the jurisdictional conference), may be appealed by one third of the members of the Jurisdictional Conference (note Par. 56, Article II, 4.), this letter is also to inform you of our intention, as delegates of the South Central Jurisdictional Conference, to offer a motion to the Jurisdictional Conference, meeting in July, 2008, that an appeal for an interpretation be made to the Judicial Council of The United Methodist Church.We believe that any signed lease between SMU and the George W. Bush Library Foundation substantiated by a violation of the legal processes of The United Methodist Church, (as defined in its Discipline), prior to this Judicial appeal and interpretation, is an ill-advised action that breaches the laws, rules, regulations and tradition of our church. Signed,SCJ DELEGATEScc: President of SMU, R. Gerald TurnerChair of the Trustees at SMU, Carl Sewell+ + + + + + + + + +THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER AND HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:We need your help to build a legal and educational campaign fund. Given the most recent actions by the George W. Bush Foundation, we need to secure funding for lawyers to help us, as well as to educate the church about this issue. Contributions can be sent to Rev. Robert Weathers, 2420 Willington Avenue, Fort Worth, Texas 76110. Rev. Weathers is a highly regarded member of the Central Texas Annual Conference and a former District Superintendent. Please make checks out to “Protect SMU Fund.”
Below is a list of all the duly elected members of the South Central Jurisdictional Conference, representing the 1.83 million United Methodists in the region. These representatives will meet in Dallas from July 15-19. They can say NO to Bush and refuse to allow him to use the land at SMU, if they are allowed to vote. About 40 percent of the delegates are likely to vote against the partisan Bush institute as of today. We need to inform and recruit 10 percent plus 1 of the remaining delegates to block the project.
Link: http://scj.umportal.org/myFolder/contentManagerImages/52/SCJ_Delegates_2008.pdf Call your Annual Conference office and ask for the addresses and/or phone numbers of the delegates from your Conference to the Jurisdictional Conference. This will include both General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference delegates. If these United Methodist Christians truly understand what Bush is requiring, they will vote against the project. Write these delegates (or call them) and ask that they not ratify the report for the Jurisdictional Mission Council which includes the Mission Council's approval of SMU leasing part of its property (owned by the South Central Jurisdiction) for the building of the George W. Bush library and partisan institute. The 2004 South Central Jurisdictional Journal says: "The Council shall be subject to the following and specific limitations of authority: All actions taken by The Council shall be valid and in full effect within the South Central Jurisdiction until the next regular session of The(Jurisdictional) Conference.....The chairperson of The Council shall submit to each regular quadrennial meeting of the Conference a written report of all actions taken by The Council during the quadrennium" (p. 101).Read the articles below to give you more information regarding the history and inside workings which led to this unfortunate decision. Also forward these articles to your Jurisdictional Conference delegates.
Updated links to information on the SMU Bush project:
http://media.www.smudailycampus.com/media/storage/paper949/news/2008/01/31/News/Bush-Library.Opponents.Up.Ante.With.New.Letter-3179148.shtml
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/AP/story/400936.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/122535/135/502/446980
http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2072519&ct=5006365
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/faith-matters/2008/2/4/tempest-in-a-texas-teapot.html
http://cbs11tv.com/education/SMU.bush.library.2.645905.html
http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=3112
http://media.www.smudailycampus.com/media/storage/paper949/news/2008/01/17/Opinion/The-fantastic.Failure.Institute.Will.Undermine.Smu-3155803.shtml
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=196
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=171
5. Continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign the petition. Each person is important. We need to tell officials of SMU and the UMC at every level that we find this association with George W. Bush unacceptable.
With best regards,Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D.
+ + + + + + + + + +
South Central Jurisdiction BishopsDALLAS EPISCOPAL AREABishop Alfred L. NorrisP.O. Box 866128Plano, TX 75086-6128Nationwide Toll Free Number: (800) 969-8201Phone: (214) 522-6741Fax: (214) 528-4435Email: bishop@ntcumc.orgNORTH TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEFORT WORTH EPISCOPAL AREABishop Ben R. Chamness464 Bailey AvenueFort Worth, TX 76107-2153Nationwide Toll Free Number: (800) 460-8622Phone: (817) 877-5222Fax: (817) 332-4609Email: bishop@ctcumc.orgCENTRAL TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEHOUSTON EPISCOPAL AREABishop Janice Riggle Huie5215 South Main StreetHouston, TX 77002-9792Phone: (713) 521-9383Fax: (713) 529-7736Email: Bishop.Huie@txcumc.orgTEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEKANSAS EPISCOPAL AREABishop Scott J. Jones9440 East Boston, Suite 160Wichita, KS 67207-3603Nationwide Toll Free Number: (800) 745-2350Phone: (316) 686-0600Fax: (316) 684-0044Email: kansasbishop@kswestumc.orgKANSAS EAST ANNUAL CONFERENCEKANSAS WEST ANNUAL CONFERENCELOUISIANA EPISCOPAL AREABishop William W. Hutchinson527 North BoulevardBaton Rouge, LA 70802-5700Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (888) 239-5286Phone: (225) 346-1646 ext 212Fax: (225) 387-3662Email: lcumc@bellsouth.netLOUISIANA ANNUAL CONFERENCEMISSOURI EPISCOPAL AREABishop Robert C. Schnase3601 Amron CourtColumbia, MO 65202Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (877) 736-1806Phone: (573) 441-1770Fax: (573) 441-0765Email: DCurry@moumethodist.orgMISSOURI ANNUAL CONFERENCENEBRASKA EPISCOPAL AREABishop Ann Brookshire Sherer2641 North 49th StreetLincoln, NE 68504-2899Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (800) 435-6107Phone: (402) 466-4955Fax: (402) 466-6793Email: bishopsherer@umcneb.orgNEBRASKA ANNUAL CONFERENCENORTHWEST TEXAS-NEW MEXICO EPISCOPAL AREABishop D. Max Whitfield11816 Lomas Boulevard, NEAlbuquerque, NM 87112-5614Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (800) 678-8786Phone: (505) 255-9361Fax: (505) 255-8738Email: mbelu@nmconfum.comNEW MEXICO ANNUAL CONFERENCENORTHWEST TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEOKLAHOMA EPISCOPAL AREABishop Robert E. Hayes, Jr.P.O. Box 60467Oklahoma City, OK 73146-0467Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (800) 231-4160Phone: (405) 530-2025Fax: (405) 350-2040Email: cberry@okumc.orgOKLAHOMA ANNUAL CONFERENCEOKLAHOMA INDIAN MISSIONARY ANNUAL CONFERENCESAN ANTONIO EPISCOPAL AREABishop Joel N. MartinezP.O. Box 781688San Antonio, TX 78278-1688Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (888) 349 -4191Phone: (210) 408-4500Fax: (210) 408-4501Email: bishop@umcswtx.orgRIO GRANDE ANNUAL CONFERENCESOUTHWEST TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCEARKANSAS EPISCOPAL AREABishop Charles N. Crutchfield2 Trudie Kibbe Reed DriveLittle Rock, AR 72202-3770Nationwide Toll Free Phone: (877) 646-1816Phone: (501) 324-8001Fax: (501) 324-8021Email: bishopcnc@arumc.orgARKANSAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE---
Sunday, February 3, 2008
On The Record: Tom Love
On The Record: Tom Love
For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Tom Love, the Democratic candidate for U.S. House District 24 for the 2008 election. (for ACT Blue)
What prompted you to run for public office?
I am a UT Alumni, a working man, concerned husband, father, and grandfather who has seen the American Dream slowly turning into the American Nightmare. We have become a nation that has far too long ignored its working peoples’ needs and rewarded powerful special interests. Homeowners and Texans who pay their taxes are penalized while multimillionaires get special tax breaks. We cannot become a nation that builds bridges to nowhere, yet constructs no pathway to our children's future.
I have always been interested in politics from an early age. My maternal grandmother fell and broke her hip, yet she voted from a wheel chair in the 1960 Presidential Year elections. She had been born in the 1870s in Illinois and remembered not being allowed to vote as a young woman because she was female. “I will never forfeit a right that I worked so hard to obtain, “she told me. “ Never allow democracy to vanish because it is not convenient to vote, or you will never get it back, “she warned.
My paternal grandfather was a Lamar County Judge and that also had instilled an interest in politics that my father past on to me. I volunteered to work in several political campaigns while in college and afterward. I found a love for history and political science. I graduated with a government degree from UT Austin.
It was after I saw the Republicans redistricting of Texas and the undermining of the working men and women of America that I renewed my political interest and I became more politically active. I fully believe that the wage earners of America are under assault from outsourcing, unfair taxes, inadequate or barely affordable healthcare, and high energy costs that undermine our economic well being.
I recently block walked in an area of finely manicured lawns and well constructed houses. They were houses that were vacant due to loss of income and predatory lending. They stand as victims of credit manipulation and greed, the unfortunate signs of our times. We need the commitment and backbone of the American people to solve this latest fiscal disaster that was created and allowed to flourish in a time of excess and greed.
What would you say are the primary issues concerning your area?
I am calling for the creation of a “Fair Deal” for the working men and women of Texas who pay their taxes in an era where multimillionaires get unfair tax breaks and there is outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries and over $3 per gallon gasoline. The Texas Legislative and Congressional districts were redrawn in a non-census year to represent ideology and not the Texas communities that their elected officials had tried to represent. The Republicans basically told Texans they did not have enough sense to choose their own elected officials, so they would change the districts and overruled local representation for ideological partisan concerns. This meant that Texans no longer had control over local issues, but became pawns in the political board game of ideological Blue states verses Red states that American politics has degenerated to.
Texans and Americans need to address the healthcare needs that have allowed 47 million Americans to go without healthcare. Policies that allow chronic illnesses and unsafe nurse-to- patient ratios weaken our hospitals ability to treat patients without private insurance intervention. Texans need to be able to build a pathway for their children’s futures not build bridges to nowhere as the Republicans have done. Teachers must receive better pay and be allowed to teach.
I pledge that I will work between the aisles and in whatever venue necessary to represent my district and its needs and concerns.
What are your qualifications for the position for which you are running?
I have real experience dealing with the real life problems of Texans. As a Small Business owner, a Financial Services Worker with the Texas Department of Human Services, and now as a Financial Services Supervisor with my present financial services company. I have experienced firsthand the problems and difficulties of Texans who struggle to pay their bills, maintain their homes, feed and cloth their children, and teach American family values to the next generation.
I believe that I can send a message that working people of this state are tired of having partisan ideological differences and a Culture of Corruption that keep Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives from solving issues fairly and without the crippling debt that requires massive borrowing from China to finance ill advised ventures. I am a social progressive that believes in sound fiscal values.
How do politics affect your family?
We, like most other Texas families, have to work to provide the economic livelihood necessary to pay mortgages, car notes, credit cards to maintain credit worthiness, and care for our families. I fully believe that the wage earners of America are under assault from outsourcing, unfair taxes, barely affordable healthcare, and high energy costs that undermine our economic well being.
We have allowed pollution of our air and streams to cause global warming issues that must be addressed or mean certain disaster for future generations. Additionally, we are spending by one study $720 million dollars a day for a war in Iraq that we have already “won”, but keep an occupation in place without an exit strategy while our American National Guard troops and families suffer with repeated call-ups, extensions, redeployment, and post traumatic stress disorder without adequate medical care and try to survive in the face of predatory lenders and extreme economic hardship.
All these problems are causing a massive and crushing debt. Additionally, we are under threat by our dependence on foreign oil. The Republicans, since Nixon, have promised to eliminate, but have instead rewarded, the status quo at the expense of our own citizens. It is time we solved these problems. We can. We will.
Who are the important political figures that inspired you to become active in politics?
I grew up in Paris, Lamar County, Texas in an era that had Speaker Sam Rayburn of Bonham on the west, Representative Wright Patman of Texarkana to the east, and future Speaker Jim Wright to the south. All were Texans that served in the Congress for over 34 years. The people in these communities had no need to question where these representatives stood. They stood for their districts, their state, and their country period. Sam Rayburn once said he was a Democrat without prefix, without suffixes, and without apology.
In school at UT, I studied John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt. I also admire Al Gore and his battle to make the world aware of global warming issues that threaten worldwide catastrophe. I admire all the great and future pioneers who are not afraid or be deterred from solving America’s problems and enabling our uniquely American Spirit of fair trade, free enterprise, a judicial integrity to flourish and endure.
What is your biggest hope for Texas?
I hope and believe that; despite the perils that face us, and the crushing debt that has caused every single American to owe more that $30000 to the national deficit, we can rise above the ideological quagmire that has engulfed us and bring a new and greater shinning path to us and our posterity. We need not be in fear or dislike government, for we are the government. And by the people, for the people, and with the American public, we will triumph over adversity. The uniquely American and Texan experiment that our forefathers created we must now protect, serve, and defend and; with God’s help, solve the issues of our time and create new direction for future generations.
I speak as a UT Alumni and a working man who loves his country and loves his God, who asks for your help as I know this, will be a long difficult journey. I am under no illusion that I can take this path alone. With my wife of thirty two years, Marilyn, I take this journey. We need Americans to register to vote and vote for America. Vote to end the politics of division, lies and deceit. Vote to end the politics of disrespect and humiliation. Vote for clean air and the right to breathe free. Vote for the right to have affordable and available heath care for a better and healthier America with employment and wages that enable an economically safer and sound America.
If you give us your vote and we will pledge to serve, protect, and defend our Great Land. And if you give us your vote, my heart will be your heart, my hand will be your hand, our voice will be your voice, and your dream will be our reality. I speak today as a working man who loves his country and loves his God, who asks for your vote, requests your help, and thanks you for listening.
For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Tom Love, the Democratic candidate for U.S. House District 24 for the 2008 election. (for ACT Blue)
What prompted you to run for public office?
I am a UT Alumni, a working man, concerned husband, father, and grandfather who has seen the American Dream slowly turning into the American Nightmare. We have become a nation that has far too long ignored its working peoples’ needs and rewarded powerful special interests. Homeowners and Texans who pay their taxes are penalized while multimillionaires get special tax breaks. We cannot become a nation that builds bridges to nowhere, yet constructs no pathway to our children's future.
I have always been interested in politics from an early age. My maternal grandmother fell and broke her hip, yet she voted from a wheel chair in the 1960 Presidential Year elections. She had been born in the 1870s in Illinois and remembered not being allowed to vote as a young woman because she was female. “I will never forfeit a right that I worked so hard to obtain, “she told me. “ Never allow democracy to vanish because it is not convenient to vote, or you will never get it back, “she warned.
My paternal grandfather was a Lamar County Judge and that also had instilled an interest in politics that my father past on to me. I volunteered to work in several political campaigns while in college and afterward. I found a love for history and political science. I graduated with a government degree from UT Austin.
It was after I saw the Republicans redistricting of Texas and the undermining of the working men and women of America that I renewed my political interest and I became more politically active. I fully believe that the wage earners of America are under assault from outsourcing, unfair taxes, inadequate or barely affordable healthcare, and high energy costs that undermine our economic well being.
I recently block walked in an area of finely manicured lawns and well constructed houses. They were houses that were vacant due to loss of income and predatory lending. They stand as victims of credit manipulation and greed, the unfortunate signs of our times. We need the commitment and backbone of the American people to solve this latest fiscal disaster that was created and allowed to flourish in a time of excess and greed.
What would you say are the primary issues concerning your area?
I am calling for the creation of a “Fair Deal” for the working men and women of Texas who pay their taxes in an era where multimillionaires get unfair tax breaks and there is outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries and over $3 per gallon gasoline. The Texas Legislative and Congressional districts were redrawn in a non-census year to represent ideology and not the Texas communities that their elected officials had tried to represent. The Republicans basically told Texans they did not have enough sense to choose their own elected officials, so they would change the districts and overruled local representation for ideological partisan concerns. This meant that Texans no longer had control over local issues, but became pawns in the political board game of ideological Blue states verses Red states that American politics has degenerated to.
Texans and Americans need to address the healthcare needs that have allowed 47 million Americans to go without healthcare. Policies that allow chronic illnesses and unsafe nurse-to- patient ratios weaken our hospitals ability to treat patients without private insurance intervention. Texans need to be able to build a pathway for their children’s futures not build bridges to nowhere as the Republicans have done. Teachers must receive better pay and be allowed to teach.
I pledge that I will work between the aisles and in whatever venue necessary to represent my district and its needs and concerns.
What are your qualifications for the position for which you are running?
I have real experience dealing with the real life problems of Texans. As a Small Business owner, a Financial Services Worker with the Texas Department of Human Services, and now as a Financial Services Supervisor with my present financial services company. I have experienced firsthand the problems and difficulties of Texans who struggle to pay their bills, maintain their homes, feed and cloth their children, and teach American family values to the next generation.
I believe that I can send a message that working people of this state are tired of having partisan ideological differences and a Culture of Corruption that keep Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives from solving issues fairly and without the crippling debt that requires massive borrowing from China to finance ill advised ventures. I am a social progressive that believes in sound fiscal values.
How do politics affect your family?
We, like most other Texas families, have to work to provide the economic livelihood necessary to pay mortgages, car notes, credit cards to maintain credit worthiness, and care for our families. I fully believe that the wage earners of America are under assault from outsourcing, unfair taxes, barely affordable healthcare, and high energy costs that undermine our economic well being.
We have allowed pollution of our air and streams to cause global warming issues that must be addressed or mean certain disaster for future generations. Additionally, we are spending by one study $720 million dollars a day for a war in Iraq that we have already “won”, but keep an occupation in place without an exit strategy while our American National Guard troops and families suffer with repeated call-ups, extensions, redeployment, and post traumatic stress disorder without adequate medical care and try to survive in the face of predatory lenders and extreme economic hardship.
All these problems are causing a massive and crushing debt. Additionally, we are under threat by our dependence on foreign oil. The Republicans, since Nixon, have promised to eliminate, but have instead rewarded, the status quo at the expense of our own citizens. It is time we solved these problems. We can. We will.
Who are the important political figures that inspired you to become active in politics?
I grew up in Paris, Lamar County, Texas in an era that had Speaker Sam Rayburn of Bonham on the west, Representative Wright Patman of Texarkana to the east, and future Speaker Jim Wright to the south. All were Texans that served in the Congress for over 34 years. The people in these communities had no need to question where these representatives stood. They stood for their districts, their state, and their country period. Sam Rayburn once said he was a Democrat without prefix, without suffixes, and without apology.
In school at UT, I studied John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt. I also admire Al Gore and his battle to make the world aware of global warming issues that threaten worldwide catastrophe. I admire all the great and future pioneers who are not afraid or be deterred from solving America’s problems and enabling our uniquely American Spirit of fair trade, free enterprise, a judicial integrity to flourish and endure.
What is your biggest hope for Texas?
I hope and believe that; despite the perils that face us, and the crushing debt that has caused every single American to owe more that $30000 to the national deficit, we can rise above the ideological quagmire that has engulfed us and bring a new and greater shinning path to us and our posterity. We need not be in fear or dislike government, for we are the government. And by the people, for the people, and with the American public, we will triumph over adversity. The uniquely American and Texan experiment that our forefathers created we must now protect, serve, and defend and; with God’s help, solve the issues of our time and create new direction for future generations.
I speak as a UT Alumni and a working man who loves his country and loves his God, who asks for your help as I know this, will be a long difficult journey. I am under no illusion that I can take this path alone. With my wife of thirty two years, Marilyn, I take this journey. We need Americans to register to vote and vote for America. Vote to end the politics of division, lies and deceit. Vote to end the politics of disrespect and humiliation. Vote for clean air and the right to breathe free. Vote for the right to have affordable and available heath care for a better and healthier America with employment and wages that enable an economically safer and sound America.
If you give us your vote and we will pledge to serve, protect, and defend our Great Land. And if you give us your vote, my heart will be your heart, my hand will be your hand, our voice will be your voice, and your dream will be our reality. I speak today as a working man who loves his country and loves his God, who asks for your vote, requests your help, and thanks you for listening.
Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags
If some brilliant minded business man is interested in a real marketing venture, then they need to put their log on cloth shopping bags and distrobute them instead of these environmental harmefull pastic bags. I'm not sure a tax is the answer, but the results indicate that is a measure of real discussion.
I challange a businessman to meet the need and use their advertising logo as a bonus to spur the end to so much worldwide litter.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
DUBLIN — There is something missing from this otherwise typical bustling cityscape. There are taxis and buses. There are hip bars and pollution. Every other person is talking into a cellphone. But there are no plastic shopping bags, the ubiquitous symbol of urban life.
In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.
Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.
“When my roommate brings one in the flat it annoys the hell out of me,” said Edel Egan, a photographer, carrying groceries last week in a red backpack.
Drowning in a sea of plastic bags, countries from China to Australia, cities from San Francisco to New York have in the past year adopted a flurry of laws and regulations to address the problem, so far with mixed success. The New York City Council, for example, in the face of stiff resistance from business interests, passed a measure requiring only that stores that hand out plastic bags take them back for recycling.
But in the parking lot of a Superquinn Market, Ireland’s largest grocery chain, it is clear that the country is well into the post-plastic-bag era. “I used to get half a dozen with every shop. Now I’d never ever buy one,” said Cathal McKeown, 40, a civil servant carrying two large black cloth bags bearing the bright green Superquinn motto. “If I forgot these, I’d just take the cart of groceries and put them loose in the boot of the car, rather than buy a bag.”
Gerry McCartney, 50, a data processor, has also switched to cloth. “The tax is not so much, but it completely changed a very bad habit,” he said. “Now you never see plastic.”
In January almost 42 billion plastic bags were used worldwide, according to reusablebags.com; the figure increases by more than half a million bags every minute. A vast majority are not reused, ending up as waste — in landfills or as litter. Because plastic bags are light and compressible, they constitute only 2 percent of landfill, but since most are not biodegradable, they will remain there.
In a few countries, including Germany, grocers have long charged a nominal fee for plastic bags, and cloth carrier bags are common. But they are the exception.
In the past few months, several countries have announced plans to eliminate the bags. Bangladesh and some African nations have sought to ban them because they clog fragile sewerage systems, creating a health hazard. Starting this summer, China will prohibit sellers from handing out free plastic shopping bags, but the price they should charge is not specified, and there is little capacity for enforcement. Australia says it wants to end free plastic bags by the end of the year, but has not decided how.
Efforts to tax plastic bags have failed in many places because of heated opposition from manufacturers as well as from merchants, who have said a tax would be bad for business. In Britain, Los Angeles and San Francisco, proposed taxes failed to gain political approval, though San Francisco passed a ban last year. Some countries, like Italy, have settled for voluntary participation.
But there were no plastic bag makers in Ireland (most bags here came from China), and a forceful environment minister gave reluctant shopkeepers little wiggle room, making it illegal for them to pay for the bags on behalf of customers. The government collects the tax, which finances environmental enforcement and cleanup programs.
Furthermore, the environment minister told shopkeepers that if they changed from plastic to paper, he would tax those bags, too.
While paper bags, which degrade, are in some ways better for the environment, studies suggest that more greenhouse gases are released in their manufacture and transportation than in the production of plastic bags.
Today, Ireland’s retailers are great promoters of taxing the bags. “I spent many months arguing against this tax with the minister; I thought customers wouldn’t accept it,” said Senator Feargal Quinn, founder of the Superquinn chain. “But I have become a big, big enthusiast.”
Mr. Quinn is also president of EuroCommerce, a group representing six million European retailers. In that capacity, he has encouraged a plastic bag tax in other countries. But members are not buying it. “They say: ‘Oh, no, no. It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t be acceptable in our country,’ ” Mr. Quinn said.
As nations fail to act decisively, some environmentally conscious chains have moved in with their own policies. Whole Foods Market announced in January that its stores would no longer offer disposable plastic bags, using recycled paper or cloth instead, and many chains are starting to charge customers for plastic bags.
But such ad hoc efforts are unlikely to have the impact of a national tax. Mr. Quinn said that when his Superquinn stores tried a decade ago to charge 1 cent for plastic bags, customers rebelled. He found himself standing at the cash register buying bags for customers with change from his own pocket to prevent them from going elsewhere.
After five years of the plastic bag tax, Ireland has changed the image of cloth bags, a feat advocates hope to achieve in the United States. Vincent Cobb, the president of reusablebags.com, who founded the company four years ago to promote the issue, said: “Using cloth bags has been seen as an extreme act of a crazed environmentalist. We want it to be seen as something a smart, progressive person would carry.”
Some things worked to Ireland’s advantage. Almost all markets are part of chains that are highly computerized, with cash registers that already collect a national sales tax, so adding the bag tax involved a minimum of reprogramming, and there was little room for evasion.
The country also has a young, flexible population that has proved to be a good testing ground for innovation, from cellphone services to nonsmoking laws. Despite these favorable conditions, Ireland still ended up raising the bag tax 50 percent, after officials noted that consumption was rising slightly.
Ireland has moved on with the tax concept, proposing similar taxes on customers for A.T.M. receipts and chewing gum. (The sidewalks of Dublin are dotted with old wads.) The gum tax has been avoided for the time being because the chewing gum giant Wrigley agreed to create a public cleanup fund as an alternative. This year, the government plans to ban conventional light bulbs, making only low-energy, long-life fluorescent bulbs available.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/world/europe/02bags.html?em&ex=1202187600&en=a0cb9e6b4946bd27&ei=5087%0A&exprod=myyahoo
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
I challange a businessman to meet the need and use their advertising logo as a bonus to spur the end to so much worldwide litter.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
DUBLIN — There is something missing from this otherwise typical bustling cityscape. There are taxis and buses. There are hip bars and pollution. Every other person is talking into a cellphone. But there are no plastic shopping bags, the ubiquitous symbol of urban life.
In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.
Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.
“When my roommate brings one in the flat it annoys the hell out of me,” said Edel Egan, a photographer, carrying groceries last week in a red backpack.
Drowning in a sea of plastic bags, countries from China to Australia, cities from San Francisco to New York have in the past year adopted a flurry of laws and regulations to address the problem, so far with mixed success. The New York City Council, for example, in the face of stiff resistance from business interests, passed a measure requiring only that stores that hand out plastic bags take them back for recycling.
But in the parking lot of a Superquinn Market, Ireland’s largest grocery chain, it is clear that the country is well into the post-plastic-bag era. “I used to get half a dozen with every shop. Now I’d never ever buy one,” said Cathal McKeown, 40, a civil servant carrying two large black cloth bags bearing the bright green Superquinn motto. “If I forgot these, I’d just take the cart of groceries and put them loose in the boot of the car, rather than buy a bag.”
Gerry McCartney, 50, a data processor, has also switched to cloth. “The tax is not so much, but it completely changed a very bad habit,” he said. “Now you never see plastic.”
In January almost 42 billion plastic bags were used worldwide, according to reusablebags.com; the figure increases by more than half a million bags every minute. A vast majority are not reused, ending up as waste — in landfills or as litter. Because plastic bags are light and compressible, they constitute only 2 percent of landfill, but since most are not biodegradable, they will remain there.
In a few countries, including Germany, grocers have long charged a nominal fee for plastic bags, and cloth carrier bags are common. But they are the exception.
In the past few months, several countries have announced plans to eliminate the bags. Bangladesh and some African nations have sought to ban them because they clog fragile sewerage systems, creating a health hazard. Starting this summer, China will prohibit sellers from handing out free plastic shopping bags, but the price they should charge is not specified, and there is little capacity for enforcement. Australia says it wants to end free plastic bags by the end of the year, but has not decided how.
Efforts to tax plastic bags have failed in many places because of heated opposition from manufacturers as well as from merchants, who have said a tax would be bad for business. In Britain, Los Angeles and San Francisco, proposed taxes failed to gain political approval, though San Francisco passed a ban last year. Some countries, like Italy, have settled for voluntary participation.
But there were no plastic bag makers in Ireland (most bags here came from China), and a forceful environment minister gave reluctant shopkeepers little wiggle room, making it illegal for them to pay for the bags on behalf of customers. The government collects the tax, which finances environmental enforcement and cleanup programs.
Furthermore, the environment minister told shopkeepers that if they changed from plastic to paper, he would tax those bags, too.
While paper bags, which degrade, are in some ways better for the environment, studies suggest that more greenhouse gases are released in their manufacture and transportation than in the production of plastic bags.
Today, Ireland’s retailers are great promoters of taxing the bags. “I spent many months arguing against this tax with the minister; I thought customers wouldn’t accept it,” said Senator Feargal Quinn, founder of the Superquinn chain. “But I have become a big, big enthusiast.”
Mr. Quinn is also president of EuroCommerce, a group representing six million European retailers. In that capacity, he has encouraged a plastic bag tax in other countries. But members are not buying it. “They say: ‘Oh, no, no. It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t be acceptable in our country,’ ” Mr. Quinn said.
As nations fail to act decisively, some environmentally conscious chains have moved in with their own policies. Whole Foods Market announced in January that its stores would no longer offer disposable plastic bags, using recycled paper or cloth instead, and many chains are starting to charge customers for plastic bags.
But such ad hoc efforts are unlikely to have the impact of a national tax. Mr. Quinn said that when his Superquinn stores tried a decade ago to charge 1 cent for plastic bags, customers rebelled. He found himself standing at the cash register buying bags for customers with change from his own pocket to prevent them from going elsewhere.
After five years of the plastic bag tax, Ireland has changed the image of cloth bags, a feat advocates hope to achieve in the United States. Vincent Cobb, the president of reusablebags.com, who founded the company four years ago to promote the issue, said: “Using cloth bags has been seen as an extreme act of a crazed environmentalist. We want it to be seen as something a smart, progressive person would carry.”
Some things worked to Ireland’s advantage. Almost all markets are part of chains that are highly computerized, with cash registers that already collect a national sales tax, so adding the bag tax involved a minimum of reprogramming, and there was little room for evasion.
The country also has a young, flexible population that has proved to be a good testing ground for innovation, from cellphone services to nonsmoking laws. Despite these favorable conditions, Ireland still ended up raising the bag tax 50 percent, after officials noted that consumption was rising slightly.
Ireland has moved on with the tax concept, proposing similar taxes on customers for A.T.M. receipts and chewing gum. (The sidewalks of Dublin are dotted with old wads.) The gum tax has been avoided for the time being because the chewing gum giant Wrigley agreed to create a public cleanup fund as an alternative. This year, the government plans to ban conventional light bulbs, making only low-energy, long-life fluorescent bulbs available.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/world/europe/02bags.html?em&ex=1202187600&en=a0cb9e6b4946bd27&ei=5087%0A&exprod=myyahoo
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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