Pelosi // Current

America's Christmas present: Jobs

Now that the House has passed its version of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is shifting her focus to jobs. With unemployment in the double digits and not showing any signs of getting any better, Democrats want to show some sort of progress on getting Americans back into the workplace. The hope is to have either a big bill or a package of smaller bills passed in December. How will they create new jobs? Well the House is looking at getting a big highway construction bill moving - but no one seems to know how they would pay for it - which would mean adding to the deficit.

President Obama has called for a summit in December between lawmakers, administration officials, small businesses, chief executives and union representatives to talk about how to get a handle on unemployment. The AFL-CIO has already given a preview of its ideas it'll bring to the summit. For example: Using TARP money to give commercial loans to small businesses and providing healthcare and food assistance for the unemployed.

How successful has the government been at job creation thus far? Recovery .gov, the Administration's site to let citizens track the effects of the stimulus money, has a big number labeled "Jobs Created/Saved as Reported by Recipients": 640,329 (as of 10/30). That's great and all, but by the same home page of the same site about $215B have been spent so far out of the recovery money. Which comes out roughly to $335,000 per job. (That's just me and a calculator and a few rounded-off numbers - I'm sure better estimates exist out there.)

Another side of the math is that if we replicated those 640K jobs that were created over the course of this year there would still be about 10 million Americans unemployed.

Expensive and difficult!

All right, how do you think we could drive unemployment down? Give us your best ideas.

FROM THE BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/17/americas-christmas-present-jobs/

SOURCES: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/68045-pelosi-switches-to-jobs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125803687743645333.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1651501820091117
http://recovery.govNow that the House has passed its version of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi... more

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7 days ago
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Democrat-Led healthcare reform could make things WORSE

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Common Dreams.org-- Kucinich's Brave health Vote Vs Obama's Broken Promises

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14 days ago
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What's in the House healthcare bill?

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Raw Video: Health Care Bill Passes in the House

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Health Care Passes House, Senate Next

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16 days ago
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DC Protesters Mocked by Media, Ignored by Politicians

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Healthcare: Pelosi goes back on her word

~y2009m11d5-Healthcare-Pelosi-goes-back-on-her-word

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Boehner Would Repeal Medicare

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19 days ago
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HR3962: No Bill is Better than a Bad Bill

Sucks.

Yes there are positives touted by Pelosi et al. But the negatives outweigh the positives:

- No effective cost containment mechanisms
- A negligible pubic option (you remember the public option don't you?)
- Will not result in making health care more affordable
- Many provisions that will benefit corporate stakeholders (no kidding, it was written by insurance lobbyists)
- This loophole has been added—“while making sure that such a
change doesn’t further destabilize the current individual health insurance
market.”
- No say over reimbursement and
coverage policies

All of this from a progressive health reform website. The article contines with the following:
__________________________________________________
In sum, this $1.055 trillion plan over ten years will not fix the major problems of cost and affordable access to health care in our deteriorating system, will add new layers of bureaucracy and complexity to the present system, is not fiscally responsible, and is not sustainable.

What to do now? Rather than accept an unworkable bill that is politically expedient, we would be better off to make a major course change. The best first option would be to call for a floor vote, as originally promised by the House Speaker Pelosi, for the amendment proposed by Anthony Weiner (D-NY) to substitute HR 676, a single-payer proposal, for HR 3962. If that fails, shelving this bill would be the best option, but if that is not possible, lawmakers should be pressed to retain the amendment proposed by Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to allow states to experiment with single-payer plans, as a number of states would like to do (eg. California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania). That amendment has already been passed by a rare bipartisan vote of 27-19 in the House Education and Labor Committee.
_________________________________________________

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/blog/john-geyman-md-pnhp/2009/11/05/health-care-reform-2009-no-bill-is-better-than-a-bad-billSucks. Yes there are positives touted by Pelosi et al. But the negatives outweigh... more

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19 days ago
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HR3962 Hype: Affordable Health Care for America Act

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19 days ago
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Sign in an INDIANA store front window... [Humor]

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20 days ago
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Weiner Amendment Would Transform HR3200 into Something Useful

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20 days ago
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Inside the Pelosi 12

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20 days ago
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Pelosi's 1,990 Page Runaway Train

Pelosi's proposed bill on health care reform isn't much liked by either progressives or conservatives. So who the hell is it for then?

The Wall Street Journal states:
__________________________________________________________
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.
___________________________________________________________

I don't think the term Obamacare has any meaning and I usually shrug off anyone who uses it. No plan is Obama's plan. They are all compromises between many forces, and Obama keeps caving on his ultimatums. So there is no such thing as "Obamacare". It is simply a derogatory anti-Obama term that means nothing except maybe to racists who hate Obama for existing at all.

But what's interesting here is that the proposed bill pleases no one that I can see. 12 protesters were just arrested at Pelosi's San Francisco office for a sit-in in protest of her taking single payer off the table. This current public option plan does little to address real meaningful health care reform. Yes there are a few crumbs of reform there. Whop-dee-freakin-do! What we really need in this country is a single payer system because as long as we try to compromise with the insurance industry this is the kind of bull we'll keep getting, legislation that is nothing more than an insurance industry bailout in reform clothing.

You can't please everyone or you'll end up with nothing. Isn't there a fable about that? In contrast to this 1,990 page monstrosity, Weiner's HR626 single payer bill is around 32 pages. Simply give everyone medicare. Problem solved.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505423751140690.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Visit:
http://www.healthcare-now.org/
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org
http://outinthestreetfilms.comPelosi's proposed bill on health care reform isn't much liked by either progressives... more

JonRaymond
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21 days ago
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Pelosi 12 Arrested at her San Francisco Office

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JonRaymond
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21 days ago
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Abortion Foe Urged Faithful to Burn Pelosi and Reid

article by Tommi Avicolli-Mecca, from BeyondChron

Right-wing, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she spoke outside the Capitol building last Thursday on the new Democratic healthcare reform bill. Terry yelled, “Nancy Pelosi, you will burn in hell for this!”

Pelosi responded by thanking the “insurance companies of America.” Terry and his small crew of right-wing Christian militants staged a street theatre protest earlier that day as Congressional workers were arriving at their jobs. The handful of protesters were dressed for the upcoming pagan holiday as demons, with one wearing a Pelosi face mask, and another the likeness of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Terry, who founded the notorious Operation Rescue, is on a crusade against healthcare reform that includes a government option because he says it will provide abortions, even though President Obama has stated that it will not. Since August, Terry has been running around the country disrupting town hall meetings and threatening violence to government officials who support abortion.

Terry used the upcoming Halloween holiday to announce a scary contest for the conservative Christian set. The kind who run around with “fags burn in hell” signs at funerals.

Terry called on his comrades to participate in “Burn in Hell,” anti-healthcare reform protests by lighting up effigies of Pelosi and Reid. There’s even a youtube video showing the faithful how to build the effigies and set them ablaze.

Participants in these demonstrations were encouraged to send in their photos and videos from their Halloween burnings for a chance at prizes, including a Washington trip during Roe v. Wade anniversary week in January. Roe v. Wade was the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in America.

Explained Terry, “We are giving people a way to peacefully vent their anger at the murder that Pelosi and Reid are trying to ram down our throats.”

Of course, by “murder” he’s not referring to the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the countless poor folks who die because they cannot afford to pay for healthcare.

“If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid force us to pay for child killing and they die unrepentant, they will burn in hell for this,” Terry told the Huffington Post. But not for allowing more children to die in the wars or because their parents can’t afford healthcare.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, was not thrilled with the contest: "I don't think appealing to people's anger and in effect inciting them to acts which either display or in any way project violent acts is consistent with rational discussion of very critical issues."

But it is consistent with the way right-wing Christians have always dealt with those they don’t like. When they weren’t burning witches and faggots in ages past, they were inciting violence against Jews and others.

Terry can say that the intention of his burnings was a peaceful venting of anger, but those of us who have been victims of his brand of Christianity don’t find his words very reassuring.article by Tommi Avicolli-Mecca, from BeyondChron Right-wing, anti-abortion... more