MoreRepigSocialEngineering-StarvePoor2BenefitRich

[Gayle in MD]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are targeting domestic nutrition programs and international food assistance as they try to control spending in next year's budget.

In a bill released Monday, Republicans proposed cutting $832 million – or 12 percent – from this year's budget for the federal nutrition program that provides food for low-income mothers and children. The 2012 budget proposal for food and farm programs also includes a decrease of almost $457 million, or 31 percent, from an international food assistance program that provides emergency aid and agricultural development dollars to poor countries.

The legislation would provide $71 billion for food stamps, $2 billion less than the Obama administration projected would be necessary for next year.

Republicans who wrote the bill said the cuts in domestic food programs are taken from excess dollars in those accounts, and participants won't see a decrease in services.

Domestic nutrition programs are mined for dollars in tight budget times because they often have extra money sitting in their accounts. Money is allocated for the programs based on projections of need and food costs, and those needs are sometimes overestimated.

Hunger advocates have warned against stripping those programs of those reserves. Two analysts from the liberal research and advocacy group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Zoe Neuberger and Robert Greenstein, said Monday that the cuts could mean turning away as many as 475,000 people from the Women, Infants and Children program if food prices continue to rise.

Almost 9 million low-income mothers and children participate in the WIC program, which provides food, health care referrals and nutrition education.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said the GOP budget "rolls back years of progress."

"This budget threatens the health and security of American families, while asking the most of low-income seniors and the most vulnerable among us," she said.

The bill would cut almost 12 percent of the Food and Drug Administration's $2.5 billion budget, with fees charging industry for regulation potentially making up some of that difference. The legislation also cuts rural development programs, rural housing programs and agricultural research programs administered by the Agriculture Department.

Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee, said the cuts would "root out waste and duplication."

"Where they have strayed from their core mission, we rein in agencies so they may better focus on the responsibilities for which they are intended," Kingston said.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/23/house-gop-proposes-budget_n_865915.html


<span style="color: #660000"> <span style='font-size: 11pt'>The desperate and the hungry, in this old world, can just starve, according to the Repiglican Social Engineering form of starve the poor, to give more, more more to the wealthy and the corporate polluters, HC monopolies, and thieves on Wall St.

Given we pay more for health costs, than any other country, and our health care is rated down around 37 or 38 in the world, Repiglicans have decided that the hungry, cann just starve, for all they care.

Social engineering??? Yep, just starve them off.

Funny, how so much of this money actually goes to the Bible States, where we have so many natural disasters, and where people like those who are suffering right now, in Ark., and Missouri, homeless, and hungry, can just starve, for all the Repigs care.

Children who are suffering all over the world, will, I'm sure, be thrilled as their belly's swell, to know that the Repigs, are protecting the billionaires, the Grand Oil Party, will always see to it that the filthy rich, are well rewarded, for their campaign money.

G.</span> </span>

[Gayle in MD]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Bernie Sanders' Top 10 Tax Avoiders
— By Michael Mechanic

| Tue Mar. 29, 2011 3:30 AM PDT


In a Sunday press release calling on wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their share, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont offered a list of what he calls "some of the 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders."

Sanders, you'll recall, made headlines for his epic 8.5-hour speech/filibuster this past December, dealing with how Obama's pending tax-cut deal with the GOP would be bad for America. The speech—published this month as a paperback simply titled The Speech—was in vain: Congress passed the deal, extending tax breaks not merely to the poor and middle-class, but to America's richest people.

It also slashed the estate tax from 55 percent to 35 percent and exempted the first $5 million of an estate's value ($10 million for a couple)—up from $1 million pre-Bush. In his speech, Sanders warned against this change, noting, "Let us be very clear: This tax applies only—only—to the top three-tenths of 1 percent of American families; 99.7 percent of American families will not pay one nickel in an estate tax. This is not a tax on the rich, this is a tax on the very, very, very rich. (Click here for our blockbuster charts showing just how rich the very, very, very rich actually are.)

If the estate tax—which Republicans have cleverly rebranded the "death tax"—were to be eliminated entirely (another GOP goal), Sanders says it would cost US taxpayers $1 trillion over 10 years. "Families such as the Walton family, of Walmart fame, would have received, just this one family, about a $30 billion tax break," he said in the speech.




As one of few voices in Congress calling seriously for balance between cuts and new revenues, Sanders wants to close corporate tax loopholes and get rid of tax breaks for Big Oil. He's put forth a bill that would impose a 5.4 percent surtax on household income north of $1 million, and earmark that money for deficit reduction. He estimates it would bring in $50 billion a year, whereas Congress' recent tax-cut deal will add around $700 billion to the deficit.

So, without further ado, here's Bernie's tax-avoiders list. If you have any quibbles with his facts, let us know in the comments.

1) ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. [Note: Our post last April reported that ExxonMobil was owed $46 million by the IRS.]

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK WE SHOULD RAISE TAXES ON THE TOP THREE AND A HALF PERCENT, AND END CORPROATE LOOPHOLES.

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