BERRIEN
COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
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$1.2 trillion: With the money going to the Iraq war, the United States could set up a universal health care system, provide universal preschool, carry out the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, double cancer research funding, increase funding to Gulf Coast reconstruction, and enact a global immunization campaign to save millions of children's lives.
LEAVING THE POOR BEHIND: 37 million Americans are living in poverty. The percentage of Americans in poverty rose from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.6 percent in 2005. The current economic recovery is reinforcing income inequality. A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study found "a greater share of this capital income goes to the richest households than at any time since the CBO began tracking such trends." "Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bu$h's tax cuts." The tax cuts, which Bu$h wants to make permanent, "offered the biggest benefits by far to people at the very top -- especially the top 1 percent of income earners," i.e. our 6th Congressional District GOP Representative Fred Upton... U.S. Annual War Spending Grows $8.4 billion: The cost of the Iraq war per month. “The Pentagon has been estimating last year’s costs for the increasingly unpopular war at about $8 billion a month. It rose from a monthly ‘burn rate’ of about $4.4 billion during the first year of fighting in fiscal 2003.” The U.S. commitment in Afghanistan adds roughly another $1 billion.
This is what a GOP-controlled government did. The American people deserve better. ECONOMY -- BU$H CELEBRATES THE FOURTH LARGEST DEFICIT IN HISTORY The Office of Management Budget projected a $296 billion federal deficit for fiscal year 2006. Bu$h held a press conference arguing that this announcement was a vindication of his economic policies: "The projected budget deficit over -- of over $420 billion is now assumed to be $296 billion. See, what happens is when you grow the economy by cutting taxes, more tax revenues come into the Treasury, and that's what we're
seeing here." But in reality, the projected 2006 deficit would be the fourth largest in American history. In fact, the top four largest deficits have all been under Bu$h's tenure; the highest was $413 billion in 2004. When Bu$h came into office, he inherited a surplus of $284 billion. At that time, the administration predicted a $516 billion surplus for 2006. The fact that Bu$h now considers a $296 billion deficit an occasion to celebrate shows how far we have fallen. Corporations in America used to pay 17% of the total IRS-collected taxes in America, but with off-shore tax shelters and other schemes and loopholes, corporations now account for less than 7% of all tax revenues collected in this country. The average worker's tax refund could be DOUBLED if corporations just paid their "fair share." GIVING AWAY THE STORE: Bu$h administration officials are ignoring the law and giving away tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to oil companies that are already swimming in cash. When oil companies drill on federal land and in coastal waters, they owe royalties to the federal government. The payments are the country's second- largest source of income, right behind taxes. However, the New York Times reports, "An eight-month investigation by the Interior Department’s chief watchdog has found pervasive problems in the government’s program for ensuring that companies pay the royalties they owe on billions of dollars of oil and gas pumped on federal land and in coastal waters." According to the report, "the agency’s data are often inaccurate, that its officials rely too heavily on statements by oil companies rather than actual records and that only about 9 percent of all oil and gas leases are being reviewed." As a result, billions of dollars that could be invested in the development of clean, renewable forms of energy are instead being used to subsidize outrageous compensation packages for oil company executives. Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney told Congress "Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior." Join the effort to get the Bu$h administration to stop giving GOP MISERY INDEX Since Bu$h took office in 2001, Michigan has lost 203,287 jobs due to outsourcing. Over 1,826 days, that's 111 jobs lost per day = 4.62 jobs lost every hour = 1 job lost every 13 minutes.
National Debt: Over $9 BILLION and growing Your Share: over $38,345 Jobs Lost: 3,179,000 (US Census Bureau) Americans Uninsured: 43,700,000 (US Census Bureau) Interest on Debt: Each American family will pay more than $10,368.00 in interest on the debt by 2014
After the official end of the last recession in March 1991, the nation embarked on nine straight years of solid job growth. But although this recession officially ended in November 2001, jobs are coming back only slowly, economists say, because companies are sending well-paying manufacturing—and now white-collar—jobs to countries with few, if any, protections for workers and the environment. And these jobs probably aren't coming back anytime soon unless the Bu$h administration, Big Business and their congressional allies reform the trade and tax policies that encourage employers to send jobs offshore. Let's get our fiscal house in order. Vote for an economy that
works for all Americans.
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