This is from the site : www.gopauctionhouse.org
Pretty revealing stuff.....
How The GOP Auction House Hurts You
Health Care
Under Republican rule, millions more Americans have gone without health insurance, even as health care costs continue to skyrocket. The Republican Medicare bill, which barred Medicare from bargaining for lower prices, kept re-importation from Canada illegal, and punishes seniors with an enrollment cost hike for every year they do not sign up, also provides for an estimated $139 billion in windfall profits for the big drug companies. And despite minimal savings for seniors, it puts the federal budget in the red as far as the eye can see. The Medicare bill is the perfect demonstration of how the Republican Culture of Corruption comes at a cost to the American people every day.
$139 Billion in Windfall Profits for the Pharmaceutical Industry
Blocks Medicare from Collective Bargaining for Lower Prices
Prevents Re-importation from Canada
"The Medicare drug benefit has metastasized from bad policy to bad politics and now to scandal and possible criminality. This law begs to be euthanized. The GOP should pull its plug. As for the perpetrators of this colossal public fraud, the Justice Department should fit them for orange jumpsuits." -- Deroy Murdoch, Contributing Editor to the conservative National Review Online
Gas Prices
Last summer, big oil lobbyists for the oil and gas industry pushed for the special interest legislation that eventually turned into the Energy bill. It was the best legislation money could buy. The bill, which was signed and touted by the Bush Administration and spearheaded in Congress by Joe Barton, Dennis Hastert and the Republican leadership, does nothing to stop the soaring cost of gas or to prevent gas stations from gouging consumers but does send $8 billion to the oil and gas industry in the form of giveaways and tax breaks. Today, gas prices are still on the rise, and the energy legislation passed by George Bush and the Republican Congress last year is seemingly more ineffective than ever. Last summer, gas prices hit a peak of $3.06 per gallon and today the high costs are back and rising fast. At $2.91 for a gallon of gas - nearly double what it was when George W. Bush took office when it was $1.52 - families who have to drive their kids to school and then drive to work are having a tougher time than ever.
Saddles taxpayers with an $8 billion cleanup bill nationwide for the contaminating MTBE.
Nearly $20 billion package of tax breaks and subsidies designed to further rig the market to favor well-connected energy producers
Drills in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, even as The Wall Street Journal reported that no amount of domestic drilling could help reduce prices for natural gas.
"Far from being a solution to the nation's energy problems, the 1,200-page monster is a mishmash of corporate giveaways and special interest kickbacks. If a morsel of responsible governance were to carry the day, the energy bill will be shredded into a million pieces and buried under ten miles of Antarctic ice sheets, with all records of its existence destroyed and the debate over its passage wiped from the public memory." -- The conservative Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
Environment
If you're looking for where the environment is on the Republican list of priorities, get comfortable. Wherever and whenever a polluter is in want, Republicans will be there. Whether it's a revolving door with the oil industry that leaves reports on Global Warming in tatters or taking "a meat ax to the Endangered Species Act," there will be less and less of our country's natural beauty left for every year Republicans are in power. "But what has really put Mr. Pombo on everyone's radar is the steady stream of environmentally destructive legislation flowing from the House Resources Committee, which he runs. The legislation would undermine environmental safeguards and raise broad new threats to endangered species and public lands. This is, in short, a sleazy piece of work, written by a man who appears to be able to conceive of property rights as something that only a private individual or a corporation can have; a man who betrays no awareness that the American public has a shared right in the refuge and the national parks and the millions of acres he wants to sell to developers. Mr. Pombo's only idea, and it is a terrible one, is to treat this nation the way he treats his Congressional district, as if it were ripe for exploitation." -- The New York Times
Support for Our Troops
Whenever the Bush Administration's foreign policy has come into question, Republicans in Congress claim that it is our troops who are being criticized. When Halliburton is caught cheating our troops out of equipment, meals and fuel, they are rewarded with another contract. When Democrats call for accountability, Republicans attack. And even as billions go to waste, Republicans deny bonuses to our service men and women even as they serve their second or third tour in Iraq, refuse to extend benefits to the National Guard and Reserves who are dying in Iraq, and propose budgets rolling back Veterans benefits.
Despite repeated allegations of fraud, Halliburton has continued to receive multi-billion dollar contracts.
Duke Cunningham's bribes came from inexperience defense contractors who were also engaged in "promoting democracy in Iran."
That same defense contractor was hired by the Bush Administration for unspecified "intelligence services."
"Is it really true that individual members of Congress, while pocketing loads of dollars from defense contractors, are playing such a pivotal role in choosing which companies get key contracts? And is that the best way to win the war on terrorism? Are things really going so well in Iraq that we can afford to organize our troop supplies by the law of the campaign contribution?" -- Josh Marshall
Education
As if the drastic under-funding of No Child Left Behind were not enough, the Republicans have made sure that when our children graduate it will be that much more difficult for them to get ahead and for America to keep its competitive edge. Even as they push more tax cuts targeted at the richest of the rich, last year's budget included the largest cuts to student aid in American history. About 80 percent of the fastest-growing jobs in the coming years will require some post-secondary education.
If current trends continue, the percentage of workers with high college degrees will decrease and the personal income of Americans will fall over the next 15 years.
The average cost of college tuition has gone up by 110% over the past 20 years, but median family income has increased by only 27%.
Republicans in Congress pushed through $12.7 billion from student loan programs, the biggest cut in American history.
"Two controversial industries -- for-profit colleges and trade schools, and private student lenders -- have been the major sources of financing for Rep. John A. Boehner's bid to become House majority leader. Boehner has been an outspoken advocate for each interest, and has used his chairmanship to push legislation that would boost profits by millions of dollars." -- Washington Post
Good American Jobs
For Republicans, there is nothing that comes before the profits of their multinational corporate donors. Whether it's worker safety, overtime pay, hard-earned pensions, minimum wage, or keeping good jobs here in America, nothing is safe from the Republican drive to reward their donors.
Republicans eliminated the right to overtime pay for millions of American workers.
Republicans refuse to even hold a vote on minium wage, with has been at $5.15 an hour since 1997.
The Bush Administration has actively and at times publicly supported the shifting of jobs overseas.
"The real income of the typical household has fallen five years in a row, despite the fact that the last three of those years-2002, 2003, and 2004-have been years of economic expansion. Over these years, our workforce has become a great deal more productive, as output per hour is up 15% from 2000 to 2004. Yet... these productivity gains have failed to reach the typical household." -- Economic Policy Institute
Social Security
They may talk about it less, but Republicans would still love to privatize Social Security. Draconian benefit cuts... trillions of dollars in "transition costs"... elimination of many survivor benefits. That's what President Bush wanted, and Republicans from every corner of the country came out in support. The American people were smarter than they thought, but Republicans made it plain that they are just waiting for their next opportunity.
Under President's Bush's implied plan, a middle-class worker retiring in 2022 would have seen guaranteed benefits cut by 9.9 percent.
Under President's Bush's implied plan, a retiree in 2075 would receive a 46% cut.
Finance and insurance sectors, many of whom were likely to benefit from privatization, funneled $12.14 million to President Bush.
"Even before he became president, Bush had advocated allowing younger workers to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes to personal investment accounts. But he never detailed the cuts to guaranteed benefits that may be necessary to close the gap between the Social Security benefits owed to retiring baby boomers and the taxes paid by a dwindling workforce. Nor has he said how the plan would be financed, since any Social Security taxes diverted to investment accounts would have to come out of benefits owed to current retirees and disabled workers." -- Washington Post
Stem Cell Research
Nancy Reagan put the debate over stem cell research in stark terms: "Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with many answers that for so long have been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this. We have lost so much time already. I just really can't bear to lose any more." And yet when a bill with bipartisan support came up allowing stem cell research only on embryos that would be discarded anyway, a majority of Republicans voted against it. Even though an overwhelming majority of Americans support such research, Republicans are simply too beholden to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's extreme right.
58% of Americans approve of embryonic stem cell research, only 31% disapprove.
The National Institute of Health states that stem cell research could eventually help patients with cancer, birth defects, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, and diabetes. http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics6.asp
"If he's got both his facts and his logic wrong-and he has-Bush's alleged moral anguish on this subject is unimpressive. In fact, it is insulting to the people (including me) whose lives could be saved or redeemed by the medical breakthroughs Bush's stem-cell policy is preventing." -- Michael Kinsley
Pretty revealing stuff.....
How The GOP Auction House Hurts You
Health Care
Under Republican rule, millions more Americans have gone without health insurance, even as health care costs continue to skyrocket. The Republican Medicare bill, which barred Medicare from bargaining for lower prices, kept re-importation from Canada illegal, and punishes seniors with an enrollment cost hike for every year they do not sign up, also provides for an estimated $139 billion in windfall profits for the big drug companies. And despite minimal savings for seniors, it puts the federal budget in the red as far as the eye can see. The Medicare bill is the perfect demonstration of how the Republican Culture of Corruption comes at a cost to the American people every day.
$139 Billion in Windfall Profits for the Pharmaceutical Industry
Blocks Medicare from Collective Bargaining for Lower Prices
Prevents Re-importation from Canada
"The Medicare drug benefit has metastasized from bad policy to bad politics and now to scandal and possible criminality. This law begs to be euthanized. The GOP should pull its plug. As for the perpetrators of this colossal public fraud, the Justice Department should fit them for orange jumpsuits." -- Deroy Murdoch, Contributing Editor to the conservative National Review Online
Gas Prices
Last summer, big oil lobbyists for the oil and gas industry pushed for the special interest legislation that eventually turned into the Energy bill. It was the best legislation money could buy. The bill, which was signed and touted by the Bush Administration and spearheaded in Congress by Joe Barton, Dennis Hastert and the Republican leadership, does nothing to stop the soaring cost of gas or to prevent gas stations from gouging consumers but does send $8 billion to the oil and gas industry in the form of giveaways and tax breaks. Today, gas prices are still on the rise, and the energy legislation passed by George Bush and the Republican Congress last year is seemingly more ineffective than ever. Last summer, gas prices hit a peak of $3.06 per gallon and today the high costs are back and rising fast. At $2.91 for a gallon of gas - nearly double what it was when George W. Bush took office when it was $1.52 - families who have to drive their kids to school and then drive to work are having a tougher time than ever.
Saddles taxpayers with an $8 billion cleanup bill nationwide for the contaminating MTBE.
Nearly $20 billion package of tax breaks and subsidies designed to further rig the market to favor well-connected energy producers
Drills in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, even as The Wall Street Journal reported that no amount of domestic drilling could help reduce prices for natural gas.
"Far from being a solution to the nation's energy problems, the 1,200-page monster is a mishmash of corporate giveaways and special interest kickbacks. If a morsel of responsible governance were to carry the day, the energy bill will be shredded into a million pieces and buried under ten miles of Antarctic ice sheets, with all records of its existence destroyed and the debate over its passage wiped from the public memory." -- The conservative Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
Environment
If you're looking for where the environment is on the Republican list of priorities, get comfortable. Wherever and whenever a polluter is in want, Republicans will be there. Whether it's a revolving door with the oil industry that leaves reports on Global Warming in tatters or taking "a meat ax to the Endangered Species Act," there will be less and less of our country's natural beauty left for every year Republicans are in power. "But what has really put Mr. Pombo on everyone's radar is the steady stream of environmentally destructive legislation flowing from the House Resources Committee, which he runs. The legislation would undermine environmental safeguards and raise broad new threats to endangered species and public lands. This is, in short, a sleazy piece of work, written by a man who appears to be able to conceive of property rights as something that only a private individual or a corporation can have; a man who betrays no awareness that the American public has a shared right in the refuge and the national parks and the millions of acres he wants to sell to developers. Mr. Pombo's only idea, and it is a terrible one, is to treat this nation the way he treats his Congressional district, as if it were ripe for exploitation." -- The New York Times
Support for Our Troops
Whenever the Bush Administration's foreign policy has come into question, Republicans in Congress claim that it is our troops who are being criticized. When Halliburton is caught cheating our troops out of equipment, meals and fuel, they are rewarded with another contract. When Democrats call for accountability, Republicans attack. And even as billions go to waste, Republicans deny bonuses to our service men and women even as they serve their second or third tour in Iraq, refuse to extend benefits to the National Guard and Reserves who are dying in Iraq, and propose budgets rolling back Veterans benefits.
Despite repeated allegations of fraud, Halliburton has continued to receive multi-billion dollar contracts.
Duke Cunningham's bribes came from inexperience defense contractors who were also engaged in "promoting democracy in Iran."
That same defense contractor was hired by the Bush Administration for unspecified "intelligence services."
"Is it really true that individual members of Congress, while pocketing loads of dollars from defense contractors, are playing such a pivotal role in choosing which companies get key contracts? And is that the best way to win the war on terrorism? Are things really going so well in Iraq that we can afford to organize our troop supplies by the law of the campaign contribution?" -- Josh Marshall
Education
As if the drastic under-funding of No Child Left Behind were not enough, the Republicans have made sure that when our children graduate it will be that much more difficult for them to get ahead and for America to keep its competitive edge. Even as they push more tax cuts targeted at the richest of the rich, last year's budget included the largest cuts to student aid in American history. About 80 percent of the fastest-growing jobs in the coming years will require some post-secondary education.
If current trends continue, the percentage of workers with high college degrees will decrease and the personal income of Americans will fall over the next 15 years.
The average cost of college tuition has gone up by 110% over the past 20 years, but median family income has increased by only 27%.
Republicans in Congress pushed through $12.7 billion from student loan programs, the biggest cut in American history.
"Two controversial industries -- for-profit colleges and trade schools, and private student lenders -- have been the major sources of financing for Rep. John A. Boehner's bid to become House majority leader. Boehner has been an outspoken advocate for each interest, and has used his chairmanship to push legislation that would boost profits by millions of dollars." -- Washington Post
Good American Jobs
For Republicans, there is nothing that comes before the profits of their multinational corporate donors. Whether it's worker safety, overtime pay, hard-earned pensions, minimum wage, or keeping good jobs here in America, nothing is safe from the Republican drive to reward their donors.
Republicans eliminated the right to overtime pay for millions of American workers.
Republicans refuse to even hold a vote on minium wage, with has been at $5.15 an hour since 1997.
The Bush Administration has actively and at times publicly supported the shifting of jobs overseas.
"The real income of the typical household has fallen five years in a row, despite the fact that the last three of those years-2002, 2003, and 2004-have been years of economic expansion. Over these years, our workforce has become a great deal more productive, as output per hour is up 15% from 2000 to 2004. Yet... these productivity gains have failed to reach the typical household." -- Economic Policy Institute
Social Security
They may talk about it less, but Republicans would still love to privatize Social Security. Draconian benefit cuts... trillions of dollars in "transition costs"... elimination of many survivor benefits. That's what President Bush wanted, and Republicans from every corner of the country came out in support. The American people were smarter than they thought, but Republicans made it plain that they are just waiting for their next opportunity.
Under President's Bush's implied plan, a middle-class worker retiring in 2022 would have seen guaranteed benefits cut by 9.9 percent.
Under President's Bush's implied plan, a retiree in 2075 would receive a 46% cut.
Finance and insurance sectors, many of whom were likely to benefit from privatization, funneled $12.14 million to President Bush.
"Even before he became president, Bush had advocated allowing younger workers to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes to personal investment accounts. But he never detailed the cuts to guaranteed benefits that may be necessary to close the gap between the Social Security benefits owed to retiring baby boomers and the taxes paid by a dwindling workforce. Nor has he said how the plan would be financed, since any Social Security taxes diverted to investment accounts would have to come out of benefits owed to current retirees and disabled workers." -- Washington Post
Stem Cell Research
Nancy Reagan put the debate over stem cell research in stark terms: "Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with many answers that for so long have been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this. We have lost so much time already. I just really can't bear to lose any more." And yet when a bill with bipartisan support came up allowing stem cell research only on embryos that would be discarded anyway, a majority of Republicans voted against it. Even though an overwhelming majority of Americans support such research, Republicans are simply too beholden to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's extreme right.
58% of Americans approve of embryonic stem cell research, only 31% disapprove.
The National Institute of Health states that stem cell research could eventually help patients with cancer, birth defects, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, and diabetes. http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics6.asp
"If he's got both his facts and his logic wrong-and he has-Bush's alleged moral anguish on this subject is unimpressive. In fact, it is insulting to the people (including me) whose lives could be saved or redeemed by the medical breakthroughs Bush's stem-cell policy is preventing." -- Michael Kinsley
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