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Keystone XL Pipeline | StateImpact Texas

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Keystone XL Pipeline | StateImpact Texas

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the s

What is the Keystone XL Pipeline?

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Background

What is the Pipeline exactly?

The Keystone Pipeline already exists. What doesn’t is its proposed expansion, the Keystone XL Pipeline. The existing one runs from oil sand fields in Alberta, Canada into the U.S., ending in Cushing, Oklahoma.
The 1,700 new miles of pipeline would offer two sections of expansion. First, it would connect Cushing, Oklahoma, where there is a current bottleneck of oil, with the Gulf Coast of Texas, where oil refineries abound. Second, it would include a new section from Alberta to Kansas. It would pass through Bakken Shale region of eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Here, it will pass through a region where oil extraction is currently booming and take on some of this crude for transport.
The specific states the line would travel through are Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The line would cross through 16 counties in North and East Texas. (A map below lays out the existing and proposed routes.)
Besides revising the pipeline’s course, Keystone XL would also increase capacity by enlarging the size of the pipes’ diameter from its current 30 inches to 36 inches.
The multi-billion dollar project is being proposed by TransCanada, a Canadian energy company. TransCanada has been attempting to get a permit for the new pipeline for over three years. Since the pipeline crosses international borders, TransCanada needs to obtain a Presidential Permit through the State Department for construction of the portion of the pipeline that goes from Canada to the U.S. “Quite frankly we need a presidential permit for about 50 feet of pipe. If we weren’t crossing that border then we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” TransCanada Public Relations representative Jim Prescott told StateImpact Texas earlier this year.
Ever since the Obama administration rejected TransCanada’s original request for a presidential permit to pipe tar sands crude from Alberta to Texas, TransCanada officials have been planning to build the project incrementally.
In February 2012 TransCanada announced it intended go ahead with the southern section, which wouldn’t need a Presidential permit. TransCanada said on July 27, 2012 that they have all the permits they need for the southern section, which they call the “Gulf Coast Project.” They plan to start construction of the pipeline in the coming weeks, an effort that could create 4,000 new jobs, TransCanada said.
The northern segment, from Alberta to Texas, has been re-submitted for approval at the federal level.
Here is a map of the existing and proposed pipeline. The already existing pipeline is represented by the solid lines and the proposed pipeline by the dashed lines:

Map by TransCanada of the existing and proposed Keystone XL pipelines

How Many Jobs Will the Pipeline Create?

The amount of jobs the pipeline will create is a contested issue and differs from source to source. Some estimates have gone as high as 500,000, which is highly unlikely. TransCanada’s own evaluation estimates the pipeline would bring 20,000 new jobs to the US. (Factors such as direct vs. indirect employment and short-term versus long-term job creation fuel the discrepancies.) The State Department estimates that the pipeline would only create 5,000 to 6,000 jobs in construction.

What Kind of Environmental Impact Will the Pipeline Have?

Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images)

Many critics of Keystone XL worry it will have harmful environmental impacts. The Sierra Club has said it opposes the specific use of tar sand, which is found in the deposits in Canada. The scientific name for tar sand is bitumen, a mixture of clay, sand, water, and oil that with modern technology can be refined into usable oil. Critics say that it is more corrosive than conventional oil. A report by a coalition of critics that include the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council claimed that “bitumen blends are more acidic, thick and sulfuric than conventional crude” and “contain significantly higher quantities of abrasive quartz sand particles.”
It is this corrosiveness that has certain parties concerned about leaks in the pipeline. A U.S. Department of State investigation shows that there have been 14 spills from TransCanada pipelines, though most relatively small. However, none of them were caused by corrosion of the pipeline but by faulty “fittings and seals at pump or valve stations,” the investigation reports.
For evidence against the transport of tar sands crude, environmentalists point to an event in May 2011, when 21,000 gallons of oil leaked in North Dakota. This was also due to a faulty valve. The State Department says the maximum amount of spillage in a worst-case-scenario of a Keystone Pipeline leak is 2.8 million gallons spread throughout a 1.7 mile area. TransCanada points out that this is significantly smaller than the amount that escaped during the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Debate about the environmental impact of the pipeline often uses Enbridge, another Canadian energy company that transports tar sands crude into the U.S, as a comparison. This competitor of TransCanada “has actually been transporting these types of products [tar sands crude] since 1999 in our pipelines,” said Denise Hamsher, Enbridge’s head of planning. Despite her claim, Enbridge is not without heavy public scrutiny. In July 2010, one of Enbridge’s pipelines ruptured in southern Michigan. Thousands of gallons of oil sands crude flowed into Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. Investigation into the cause of the spill is still ongoing.
Industry expert Oliver Moghissi of DNV, a risk management company, acknowledges corrosion’s ability to cause a pipeline rupture. “Corrosion tends to be [the] number two” cause of pipeline failure, he told StateImpact Texas. (Number one being “outside force damage, usually by an excavator.”) But he contends there’s nothing in Canadian crude that makes it any more risky than conventional crude to the long-term reliability of a pipeline. “I don’t agree that it presents a unique kind of corrosion threat,” he said.
Environmentalists also point to the process of refining tar sand saying it will create large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, though the exact percentage increase is debated.
Here is a map from the Department of State showing where the Keystone XL pipeline would go through Texas:

Map by the Department of State
The Keystone XL pipeline would take oil from Canada to refineries in Texas

Opposition from Landowners

Some Texans oppose the pipeline. One of them is farmer Julia Trigg Crawford. After Crawford declined to sign an agreement with the company, they used eminent domain to gain access to her land. She responded by filing a temporary restraining order.
Since then, Crawford’s restraining order has gone through a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Here’s the timeline: Her first restraining order was dissolved by the courts on Feb. 24, and shortly after TransCanada announced it intended to go ahead and start construction on the southern leg of the pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Then on March 2, an appeals court reinstated the restraining order after an appeal by Crawford, preventing construction from taking place. But on March 9 it was dissolved yet again for a final time.
The court said in the most recent decision that they had reinstated the restraining order “in an abundance of caution” and now that they had time to review the appeal, they believed it should be dissolved.
Crawford says she’ll continue to appeal and seek a restraining order against the pipeline. “We may have lost the temporary restraining order, but we are very much still in this game,” she says. She will meet TransCanada again at a trial that is currently scheduled for some time in May. And she is not the only landowner to oppose TransCanada’s efforts.

Why Was the Pipeline Delayed?

In the run-up to the Department of State’s decision on the pipeline, environmentalists and private homeowners in Nebraska joined forces to oppose Keystone’s route through their state. They argued that the intended route would run through the Sandhills area of Nebraska. This part of the state lies on top of the Ogallala Aquifer, where the majority of the water resources serving the Mid-West are located.
The Sandhills are home to a giant freshwater aquifer that is used for water supply. The ground is so thin in some parts of the area that groundwater on occasion rises to the surface. Water there is used primarily for irrigation, but some 2 million people also use it for drinking water.
In October 2011, the Obama Administration attempted to delay a decision on granting the pipeline a permit until 2013 at the earliest. In its statement, the White House said the reason for the delay was environmental concerns.
The Department of State issued their own statement, saying they will conduct an in-depth review to consider alternate routes in Nebraska. The Nebraska legislature called for a special session to discuss rerouting the pipeline to avoid the Ogallala Aquifer. They have also allotted up to $2 million to conduct an environmental impact study on the new route that will circumnavigate the state’s vulnerable Sandhills region.
There has been criticism from some members of Congress regarding the State Department’s handling of the initial environmental impact inquiry. An environmental group obtained emails sent between TransCanada lobbyists and State Department officials, purporting to show an over-eagerness on the government’s part to grant TransCanada a permit. Others have alleged that TransCanada was allowed to choose which company would evaluate the pipeline’s proposed environmental impact.

What Happens Next?

The Obama Administration was required to make a decision on the pipeline permit by Feb. 21 because Congress rolled the pipeline proposal into payroll tax extension legislation. On January 18, 2012, the Obama administration formally rejected the permit for the pipeline. The administration said at the time that TransCanada could reapply after finding an alternate route through Nebraska.
Some believe such a delay could be the end of the project, suggesting that TransCanada will look to ship the oil to China via Pacific pipelines.
Industry leaders believe the pipeline will be built even if Obama rejects it. TransCanada would have to change the pipeline’s course through Nebraska, resubmit an application and go through the entire evaluation process again. In late February, TransCanada announced it intended to build the Oklahoma-to-Texas portion of the pipeline, breaking ground this summer and completed by mid-2013.
One possible outcome is that TransCanada’s inability to continue construction until 2013 will pave the way for their main competitor, Enbridge, Inc. to create their own pipeline. Enbridge is in the process of developing a Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would connect Alberta’s tar sands with Kitimat, British Columbia on the Pacific Ocean. This pipeline would allow Canada to ship oil to Chinese refineries. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in favor of the project if the Obama Administration rejects the Keystone XL pipeline.
President Obama is not opposed altogether to the construction of the pipeline. On March 22 he endorsed the building of its southern half that begins in Cushing, Okla. – an important hub for petroleum processing and transportation – and ends at the refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. Noting that there’s a bottleneck in Cushing of oil, coming in from places like the oil sands of Alberta and the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, the President said that he’s “directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.”
TransCanada naturally provided a positive response to the President’s endorsement. “We appreciate his support for the Gulf Coast project,” TransCanada representative James Prescott told StateImpact Texas. “Our plan is to continue our efforts to secure the permits that are necessary, so we’ve already begun that process. So we appreciate his support for expediting that.” On July 27, 2012, TransCanada announced that they had all the permits they needed for the southern leg of the pipeline, and that construction could begin within weeks.

Investigating the Keystone XL Pipeline

In April, StateImpact reporters in Texas and Oklahoma launched a five-part collaborative series on the Keystone XL pipeline. StateImpact’s multimedia narrative includes the following reports by Mose Buchele, Dave Fehling, Terrence Henry, Logan Layden and Joe Wertz.

Part 1 | StateImpact Oklahoma

Why Cushing is Bursting and Hurting Oklahoma’s Economy

Oklahoma is in an unlikely economic predicament: It has too much oil.

Part 2 | StateImpact Texas

Will Canadian Crude Make the Keystone XL Pipeline Leak?

With the proposed Keystone XL pipeline has come the claim that the crude from north of the border is uniquely risky.

Part 3 | StateImpact Texas

Life on the Line: Landowners Fight Keystone XL and Eminent Domain

The pipeline will cross the property of 850 landowners in Texas. And not all of them are happy about it.

Part 4 | StateImpact Oklahoma

Meet the Woman Who Moved a Pipeline

Oklahoma landowner Sue Kelso fought TransCanada and won … sort of.

Part 5 | StateImpact Texas

Pipeline or Not, TransCanada Could Leave Mark on Texas Property Rights

Texas politicians love giving lip service to the sanctity of private property. They also talk a lot about the benefits of the state’s robust oil and gas industry. But what happens when those two things come into conflict?

Interns Jessica Mahoney, Daniel Ramirez and David Barer contributed research and reporting to this topic page.

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Über-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President

Posted on by under 1 Percent, Aid To Children, Energy, Groceries, High Cost, Human Rights, Justices, Motified Foods, Police States, Poverty, Profits

Über-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul “The Vulture” Singer, Ken Langone and the Kochs—and why they need to buy the White House
by Greg Palast for TruthOut/Buzzflash
Greg Palast’s investigative reports are broadcast by BBC Television’s Newsnight. His new book, Vultures’ Picnic: a Tale of Oil, Sex, Radiation and Investigative Reporting will be released by Penguin USA on November 14.
[October 5, 2011] Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new table mates: Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers, Charles and David.
Singer has called together the billionaire boys club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old fashioned way of choosing presidents—democracy and counting ballots and all that—has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d’état.
Welcome to the nightmare. Singer, Langone and the Kochs last month decided to elect Chris Christie for us. The Jersey Governor’s pseudo-campaign went belly-up before it began. But that’s besides the point. Now that the Supreme Court has effectively ended campaign finance limits and allowed secretive contributions through “corporations”, this new combine of the ultra-wealthy should not be viewed as just a political threat to the Democrats, but a threat to democracy.
Let me give you a run-down from my sulphur-scented files on these men who would be king-makers.
BILLIONAIRE 1: Ken Langone
Langone likes to be known as the founder of Home Depot, just your local tool guy in a blue apron with a little bag of screws.
But he was also the man, with his right-wing partners, behind DBT, Database Technologies. It was in my first investigation of Langone in 2000 that I discovered that DBT had created a list of several thousand “felons”—most of them Black, all of them innocent, all of them purged from Florida’s voter rolls by DBT’s client, Katherine Harris. And Langone’s company knew exactly what was going on.
What qualifies Langone to pick our president? In his own words: “I’m nuts, I’m rich.”
BILLIONAIRES 2&3: David and Charles Koch
You think you’ve read all about the billionaire brothers. Well, there’s more:
In 1996, an FBI agent, Richard Elroy, told my team that oil had been pilfered from the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. He and other G-men filmed the filch—theft, say witnesses, personally ordered by Charles Koch. A few barrels here, a few barrels there.
It all added up: to about a billion and a half dollars in looted petroleum, says one expert, a third of the Koch fortune at the time. David and Charles shared in the booty via their private company, Koch Industries.
BILLIONAIRE 4: Paul Singer
Now we get to the carrion king, Paul Singer, known as Singer The Vulture. I didn’t give him the moniker. The name Vulture was tagged on him and his speculator colleagues by the Prime Minister of Britain and the World Bank. Recently, former Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Winston Tubman suggested I ask Singer or his business associates, “Do you know you’re causing babies to die?”
What does this guy do—put poison in kiddies’ milk? Worse: he takes away the milk.
Singer’s modus operandi is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation (Peru and Congo were on his menu). He waits for the US and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations’ debts; then waits at bit longer for offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. Then Singer pounces: legally grabbing at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Trade stops, funds freeze and an entire economy is effectively held hostage.
Singer then demands aid-giving nations pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume. At BBC TV’s Newsnight, we learned that Singer demanded $400 million dollars from the Congo for a debt he picked up for less than $10 million. If he doesn’t get his 4,000% profit, he can effectively starve the nation. I don’t mean that figuratively—I mean starve as in no food. In Congo-Brazzaville last year, one-fourth of all deaths of children under five were caused by malnutrition.
For BBC, I tried to ask Vulture Singer the diplomat’s question about the baby killing, but I couldn’t get past George Gershwin. (In the New York office tower housing the billionaires’ roost, a George Gershwin look-alike in top hat and tails plays show tunes on a grand piano for Singer’s grand entrance.)
And it’s not just poor African carcasses that tempt Singer. Indeed, during my investigation for my new book Vultures’ Picnic, I discovered that Singer’s first big vulture attack was on American asbestos victims.
Background: The executives of a few asbestos companies, WR Grace, USG and Owens-Corning, knew that their asbestos factories were killing their workers. When caught and sued, the companies filed for bankruptcy, agreeing to pay almost all their earnings to those dying and injured by their asbestos.
But Singer had a better idea. These companies, as you can imagine, were worth next to nothing; and Singer bought Owens-Corning for a song.
If he could cut the amount paid to the victims, Singer could boost Corning’s value big time. So, a PR campaign was begun attacking the dying workers, saying they were all faking it.
One attacker was a guy named George W. Bush.
In January 2005, President Dubya held a televised meeting to promote an “expert” who pronounced that over half a million workers suing Singer’s industry were liars. If workers couldn’t breathe, he said to the grinning President, it wasn’t the fault of asbestos.
The “expert” was not a doctor, but notably, his “research” was partly funded by …Paul Singer. And so was Bush. Since the death of Enron’s Ken Lay, Singer and his vulture flock at Elliott International had become the top contributors to the Republican National Committee. It’s hard to measure his largesse exactly because some of that help comes in through the side door. For example, Singer put money behind the “Swift Boat” smear on Bush’s opponent, John Kerry.
The legal, political and PR attacks on the dying workers chiseled away the compensation expected to be paid by the asbestos companies, boosting their net worth. Singer then flipped Corning, selling it for a neat billion-dollar profit.
It’s legal, it’s brilliant, it’s sick, it’s Singer.
One of my favorite Singer scores was his successful scheme to legally loot the Treasury of Peru. The nation’s US lawyer told me, aghast, how Singer let Peru’s rogue President, Alberto Fujimori, flee his nation to avoid murder charges. Singer had seized Fujimori’s get-away plane. The Vulture named his price: One of Fujimori’s last acts as president before he fled was to order his dirt-poor nation to pay Singer $58 million.
Why the Billionaires Need to Buy the White House
A Koch Industries executive (not knowing he was being taped) said he had asked Charles Koch, who already had a billion from an inheritance, why Koch was pocketing a few bucks a week from poor Indians. Koch told him, “I want my fair share, and that’s all of it.”
And “all of it”, of course, includes the White House.
Putting Bush in the White House was worth his weight in gold to these gents—more, in fact. And now, the Kochs, Singer and Langone have teamed to pick a candidate they pray can take back their real estate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The gimme for Langone.
Langone’s firm DBT’s “felon” scrub list included only innocent people, so you certainly wouldn’t find the name “Langone” on it. In 2004, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged Langone with conspiracy, accusing the billionaire with subverting a stock exchange regulator’s investigation into monkey business by Langone’s investment bank.
A technicality ended the civil action on the conspiracy charge.
But now, Obama’s new banking and securities reforms, albeit weak, give regulators new enforcement powers and provide an extra independent eye on stock-market shenanigans. For Langone, picking the President means closing the regulatory eye.
The gimme for The Kochs.

The Koch Brothers, from “The Joker’s Wild” deck of cards by Greg Palast and Bob Grossman. Click here for all cards.

FBI man Elroy told our investigators that the Justice Department was going to let the FBI cuff Charles Koch on criminal charges for the theft of the Osage Indian oil. But then, fumes Elroy, Koch’s well-funded buddies, Senators Bob Dole and Don Nickles, stepped in—and Koch walked. No charges.
US Senator Dennis DeConcini wanted to know why criminal or civil charges were never brought against the Kochs. That was not a wise question to ask. The Senator told me that the Kochs threatened his political destruction if the Congressional Committee he chaired continued with its investigations of the theft of Native oil. He continued, but his political career did not.
During the Clinton Administration, Koch Industries was charged with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. Under President Bush, the charges, but not the water, were cleaned up.
In other words, crime pays—if you get to pick the sheriff.
The gimme for Paul Singer.
Paul Singer had placed a big bet on the asbestos industry; then, set out to fix the casino, helping install Bush in the White House. That is, he had a President willing to beat up on asbestos workers and push for so-called “tort reform” that undermined these victims’ claims. What the victims lost, Singer gained.
But there’s trouble on the horizon for Singer. In 2007, Britain outlawed Singer and all other Vulture speculators in Third World debt from collecting their pound of flesh in the United Kingdom. Other European nations are following suit.
Several US Congressmen are pushing a UK-style prohibition on Singer’s activities. (Even Chevron Corporation is complaining about the Vulture attacks. When Chevron calls bankers unscrupulous, they’ve got to be really unscrupulous.) Without a veto pen over Congress, Singer stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
Singer plays defense, but is best at offense: To collect on some of his claims against Argentina, his lobbyists have pushed a bill in Congress to put an economic choke-hold on trade with the South American nation. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blocked this crazy attack on our ally. As a result, Singer is not a happy gaucho. There will be blood. Obama will have to pay.
The gimme for them all.
There’s one thing that every billionaire wants: another billion. And that’s threatened by Obama’s plan to tax the “carried interest” tax deferment.
Guys like Singer and Langone don’t pay taxes like you and I do. While we pay taxes on income, the profits from vulture speculation and arbitrage are often recorded as “carried interest,” effectively not taxed. It’s a billion-dollar benefit for the billionaires, and every Republican candidate has sworn to keep this loophole open and make sure you and I pay Singers’ taxes for him.
Unfortunately for Singer, the Kochs and Langone, the GOP candidates currently kissing the billionaires’ behinds don’t seem electable.
So the Billionaire Boys Club prodded Gov. Christie, a bully-boy from Jersey, to muscle his way into the Oval Office. Christie didn’t fly, no surprise. But whether they pick the GOP candidate or retreat to their old tactics of smear-from-the-rear, the fragile thing called democracy stands little chance against the tsunamic powers of the quartet’s combined checkbooks.
*****
For more on Greg Palast’s new book, Vultures’ Picnic: in Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Predators, a Tale of Oil, Sex, Radiation and Investigative Reporting, go to www.VulturesPicnic.org.
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Gingrich Bets Big Oil Will "Crater The Economy" To Defeat Obama

Posted on by under Cheap Labor, Corporations, Criminal, Economy, Profits, Sellouts, Thieves, Unemployed

By Brad Johnson on Mar 4, 2012 at 11:30 am Appearing on CNN, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich bet that oil companies will ruin the economy, getting President Obama out of office. Asked by Candy Crowley why he is so confident of a Republican landslide in the November elections, Gingrich predicted that gasoline prices — already on a rapid rise to the massive benefit of the oil industry — will continue to skyrocket, leading to an economic collapse by August: The price of gasoline is becoming a genuine crisis for many American families. If it continues to go higher, it will crater the economy by August. Because people will have no discretionary income and as a result, the president’s going to go into the fall with very expensive gasoline, a weakening economy, a disastrously bad policy in the Middle East and a trillion dollar deficit. I think that’s a pretty big burden while he’s waging war on the Catholic Church and apologizing to Islamic extremists. I think that’s a pretty heavy burden for the President of the United States to carry for re-election. Watch it: Gasoline prices are rising much faster than oil prices are, because of decisions made by oil companies to increase their profits even as US demand declines. Americans have been shifting to much more fuel-efficient cars from a resurgent American auto industry. But the oil industry has been shutting down oil refineries, reducing production, and exporting gasoline, putting the squeeze on gasoline prices to ensure continued record profits. Further refinery shutdowns are planned, guaranteeing further gas price spikes in the future. Rampant speculator activity accelerates the flow of wealth from drivers’ pockets at the gas pump to the one percent. When gas prices go up, Big Oil wins and everyone else loses — except, Newt Gingrich bets, the Republican Party. It would take a conspiracy theorist like Rick Santorum to believe that the oil and Wall Street executives would deliberately hurt the U.S. economy to help Republicans win. But there’s little evidence that given the choice between their own short-term profits and the welfare of the 99 percent, Big Oil would make any sacrifice. Transcript: CROWLEY: What brings you the kind of optimism that makes you predict a landslide victory for Republicans? GINGRICH: Well, we lived through this in 1980 and in the end issues matter, and reality matters. The fact is that Ronald Reagan didn’t pull ahead of Jimmy Carter until September. When he did pull ahead of them he ultimately carried more states than Franklin Roosevelt carried against Hoover in 1932. And the reason is people take stock. The price of gasoline is becoming a genuine crisis for many American families. If it continues to go higher, it will crater the economy by August. Because people will have no discretionary income and as a result, the president’s going to go into the fall with very expensive gasoline, a weakening economy, a disastrously bad policy in the Middle East and a trillion dollar deficit. I think that’s a pretty big burden while he’s waging war on the Catholic Church and apologizing to Islamic extremists. I think that’s a pretty heavy burden for the President of the United States to carry for re-election.

President Obama’s plan to slash $3 trillion from deficit – latimes.com

Posted on by under Bailouts, Balance Budget, BankingFinancialReform, BankingIndustry, Big Banks, Big Oil, Billionaires, CEO Corruption, Cheap Labor, Citiens United, Class Warfare, Inflation, Millionaires, Profits, War On Labor, Workers, WorkingClass

Obama’s plan to slash $3 trillion from deficit

Aides say the proposal would do so mainly by winding down wars, raising taxes on the wealthy, closing tax loopholes and cutting the cost of Medicare.

obama

President Obama, speaking in Virginia recently, will unveil his deficit reduction package Monday. (Kevin Lamarque, Reuters / September 19, 2011)

By Peter Nicholas, Washington Bureau

September 19, 2011

Reporting from Washington—

President Obama will announce a plan to slash more than $3 trillion from the nation’s deficit over the next decade by winding down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, raising taxes on wealthier Americans, closing tax loopholes and cutting the cost of Medicare and other government health programs, senior White House officials said.

Obama also will warn congressional Republicans during a Rose Garden speech Monday that if they pass legislation that cuts programs for poor and elderly Americans without asking profitable corporations and others to sacrifice, he will veto the measure.

“In his remarks, the president will make clear he’s not going to support any plan that asks everything of some Americans and nothing of others,” said a senior White House aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could describe the plan to reporters Sunday.

Obama will present his recommendations to a congressional “super committee” considering a deficit reduction package of its own. The 12-member committee, an outgrowth of the debt ceiling negotiations over the summer, is charged with hammering out a bill that will go to Congress for an up-or-down vote this year. The committee must complete its work by Nov. 23.

Obama hopes his proposal will form the basis of a deficit reduction package that Congress ultimately approves. Failing that, it would give him an issue to use in the 2012 campaign.

His plan for lopping $3 trillion from the deficit is on top of the approximately $1 trillion in spending cuts that he signed into law in August, after reaching a deal with Republican congressional leaders to lift the nation’s debt ceiling and avert a potential default. Obama pledged to unveil the plan this month, when he called for a $447-billion jobs bill as he addressed a joint session of Congress.

Breaking down the numbers Sunday night, White House advisors said they would reach the deficit target by:

• Raising $1.5 trillion by a tax code overhaul. About $800 billion of that would come from the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for upper-income Americans — families who earn more than $250,000 a year and individuals who earn more than $200,000. The other $700 billion would consist of revenue increases achieved by closing loopholes, limiting deductions for high earners and ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies. As part of any changes to tax law, the White House wants lawmakers to follow a principle it calls the “Buffett rule”: No one earning more than $1 million a year should be taxed at a lower rate than middle-income households.

• Saving $1 trillion by wrapping up the Iraq and Afghan wars. Obama’s aim is to steadily withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan and transfer combat responsibilities to the Afghans by 2014.

• Cutting $580 billion from various federal programs, including the major healthcare entitlement programs Medicare and Medicaid.

The Buffett rule — named for Obama supporter Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who complains that his effective tax rate is less than the rate his secretary pays — drew heated comments on the Sunday talk shows, along with GOP vows to oppose it on grounds that it would hurt economic growth.

“Class warfare … may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We don’t need a system that seeks to prey on people’s fear, envy and anxiety. We need a system that creates jobs and innovation and removes these barriers for entrepreneurs to go out and rehire people.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the proposal a political move that would do little to reduce the deficit.

“The truth of the matter is, if you raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires it adds a de minimis amount of money to the Treasury to pay off the debt,” Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He too accused Obama of waging class warfare.

But Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, said Republicans risked the public’s wrath if they opposed raising taxes on people like Buffett.

“I wonder if [House Speaker] John Boehner knows what it sounds like when he continues to say the position of the Republican Party in America is that you can’t impose one more penny in taxes on the wealthiest people,” Durbin told CNN. “I wonder if he understands how that sounds in Ohio to working families who are struggling paycheck to paycheck.”

Another lightning rod for criticism in Obama’s plan is the provision on Medicare and Medicaid. Administration officials said it included $240 billion in savings from Medicare and $72 billion from Medicaid and other health programs. Although the proposal does not call for immediate benefit cuts, officials indicated that after 2017, some Medicare beneficiaries would be asked to pay more.

Obama has previously shown interest in means-testing — asking high-income seniors to pay more for their medical care.

The White House plan rules out lifting the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, as some Republicans have suggested. Other savings would come from what one senior White House official called “overpayments,” signaling that the administration wants to ask medical providers and drug makers to help reduce costs.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

President Obama’s plan to slash $3 trillion from deficit – latimes.com

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Blackout: CNN, Fox, and MSNBC Ignore Thousands Of US Day Of Rage Protesters

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politicususa.com — Most Americans are being kept in the dark about the US Day of Rage by the corporate cable news giants at CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC who have imposed a de facto blackout on the protest.

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Save The Middle Class, A blog destined to become a movement

Posted on by under Bailouts, Balance Budget, BankingFinancialReform, BankingIndustry, Big Banks, Big Oil, Billionaires, CEO Corruption, Cheap Labor, Citiens United, Class Warfare, Inflation, Millionaires, Profits, War On Labor, Workers, WorkingClass
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Monday, September 12, 2011

This Is Why We Need National Healthcare

No one thinks they are going to get sick and die at an early age which is why both Romney Care and Obama Care have the individual mandate. Listening to these Tea Party freaks scream out that a person should be allowed to die if they did not have insurance is rather sickening. It is no wonder they are as popular as a whore in church. Let’s see if it was there child in the same situation how they would feel. It is time for Medicare for all.

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By Jeff at 10:47 PM 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Obama Goes Big

Finally I saw a glimmer of hope that the person I voted for was actually still there. The plan is far from perfect but it is a pragmatic approach to what is possible with the current house of Representatives. I believe they will be forced to go along with this plan or risk being decimated in the next election.

The American Jobs Act proposal includes more than $250 billion in tax incentives for small businesses and employers, according to administration estimates. The rest of the money would be devoted to infrastructure spending, state aid, unemployment insurance, and neighborhood rehabilitation. The president will pay for the proposal by asking the congressional super committee tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction to offset the cost of the package in their proposal.

Senior administration officials said that the White House plans to introduce the president’s proposal next week as a single piece of legislation. The same administration officials did not rule out the idea that the White House would petition the congressional super committee to simply include the jobs bill in the set of recommendations that they reveal later this fall. In his speech to a joint session of Congress, however, the President repeatedly made the case that quicker action is needed.

“I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away,” he said. “There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans — including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything.”

A White House official said Obama phoned House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) earlier in the day to discuss the need for rapid passage of his jobs plan. During his speech, which was peppered with a defiant sometimes combative tone, he pledged to sell his plan outside of the D.C. Beltway as well.

“I intend to take that message to every corner of this country,” Obama said. “I also ask every American who agrees to lift your voice and tell the people who are gathered here tonight that you want action now. Tell Washington that doing nothing is not an option.” In all, the phrase “pass this jobs bill” was uttered eight times in the president’s speech, with several variations of the phrase appearing elsewhere.

There was no mention as to how many jobs the president believed his proposal would create. At a briefing before the speech, senior administration officials declined to make such an estimate as well. But underlying the whole proposal was the promise that, down the road, it would be paid for. And in the latter portion of his speech, Obama called for Congress to close special interest tax loopholes as one way to cover that cost.

“This isn’t political grandstanding,” he said. “This isn’t class warfare. This is simple math. These are real choices that we have to make.”

At the heart of the president’s plan is an extension of the payroll tax cut passed last year, through 2012. The proposal, which would affect an estimated 160 million workers by providing a $1,500 tax cut for the average family, comes in at a cost of $175 billion.

The tax components of the president’s plan don’t end there. The White House also wants a payroll tax holiday for businesses that add new workers or increase the wages of current employees; a fifty percent reduction of the tax rates businesses pay on the first $5 million in payroll; and a $4,000 tax credit for employers who hire long-term unemployed workers.

On the spending side, the president is calling for $50 billion in infrastructure repairs; $10 billion for an infrastructure bank to help leverage private capital; $30 billion for school modernization and repairs; and $35 billion in aid to states and municipalities for the purposes of rehiring and retaining teachers and first responders. The proposal would also re-authorize federal unemployment benefits for another year, with additional incentives for employers to retain their workers and train new ones without any cost. A national wireless internet initiative and changes to federal refinancing programs are also part of the American Jobs Act.

The most innovative addition may be the $15 billion that the president is proposing for “Project Rebuild” a program that would leverage private capital to finance the refurbishing of vacant or foreclosed homes. According to a senior administration official, the program would focus on “emerging residential and commercial foreclosure problems” in an effort to raise plummeting property values in those areas and avoid “community blight.”

The president’s suggested spending totals are a drop in the bucket in terms of the economy’s actual needs. Obama’s top advisers have, in the past, estimated that the country faces a $2 trillion infrastructure deficit. There is an estimated $270 billion to $500 billion in backlogged school maintenance costs. More than 200,000 government jobs have been slashed in the past year, many of them teachers and emergency first responders.

But the outlines were cheered by Democrats as an important start, as well as a much-needed shift in a political conversation that has been dominated by budget cuts.

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By Jeff at 10:37 PM 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

UN:Austerity Measures and Deficit Cuts Is Pushing The World Economy Towards Disaster

By Tom Miles – Reuters

The pursuit of austerity measures and deficit cuts is pushing the world economy toward disaster in a misguided attempt to please global financial markets, the annual report of the United Nations economic thinktank UNCTAD said on Tuesday.

The report, entitled “Post-crisis policy challenges in the world economy,” savaged U.S. and European economic policies and called for wage increases, stricter regulation of financial markets, including a return to a system of managed exchange rates, and a conscious break with market-led thinking.

“The message here is very pragmatic: we need to reverse our course quickly,” said UNCTAD Secretary General Supachai Panitchpakdi.

Supachai, a former head of the World Trade Organization, said the policy response to the crisis, with an emphasis on fiscal tightening, was misconceived and inept.

The report’s lead author Heiner Flassbeck said the global economic situation was extremely dangerous and, without more stimulus, a decade of stagnation was the best-case scenario.

The current policies were a disaster, said Flassbeck, head of the globalization and development strategies division at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, and a former deputy finance minister in Germany.

“If interests rates everywhere are zero, and if governments stick to the policy of not only keeping fiscal deficits where they are but retrenching, cutting public expenditure, then we will end up in permanent recession,” he said.

“Unemployment depends very much on demand. And if you have no demand then you need government to step in with a huge program for stimulating the economy. This was the U.S. scenario in the past. Now it’s worse because wages are rising less than in the past so you’re going to need a bigger stimulus program.”

The recovery from the financial crisis was not only jobless, which was to be expected, but it was also “wageless,” he said, with Americans, Japanese and Europeans — 70 percent of the world economy — expecting their incomes to stagnate.

In its last report a year ago, UNCTAD said a premature removal of stimulus policies might cause a deflationary spiral with attendant slumps in growth and employment around the world.

“Let’s not fool ourselves. This is a realistic scenario for the whole developed world, if we do not understand the lessons now, and really quickly, because we do not have other instruments any more,” Flassbeck told a news conference to launch this year’s report. “To revive the economy with a wageless recovery with diminished expectations by the private economy, by private households, what are the instruments at hand? There is nothing.” He said that even if things go well, global economic growth would slow to about 1.5 percent in 2012, less than half the U.N. forecast of 3.1 percent growth for this year.

HERD MENTALITY The report put much of the blame for the crisis on deregulation of financial markets, which it said invited destabilizing “herd behavior” by speculators, and allowed an over-concentration of banking activities. “What we’ve seen in the past and we never learn is that countries seem to have excessive belief in the financial markets. And we’ve seen time and again that financial markets are not very sound in their judgment,” said Supachai. “But still people keep thinking that they are doing these austerity measures because they want to please the markets so that the markets give them better ratings, including the rating agencies which do not always produce the best assessment.”

Flassbeck said the herd mentality was evident whenever equity markets and commodity markets all lurch in tandem on the same day, an effect that could not conceivably be caused by real swings in demand. But the world was ignoring it, he said. “If the G20 negotiations were not confidential I would tell you that it’s ignored even there,” he said. A November summit of the 20 biggest economies would reach “extremely weak” conclusions on tackling the crisis and would underestimate the influence of financial markets, he said. “We have three areas where the G20 wanted to be strong. The first is the coordination of economic policy: nothing. The second is commodities speculation: more or less nothing; and the third is international global monetary order: nothing. So that’s the result of nine months deliberation by the G20.”

The U.N. report said the world should introduce a system of rules-based floating exchange rates, which would kill off distorting “carry trades” in which investors borrow currencies with low interest rates to buy higher-yielding currencies. The system would be based on divergences between the consumer prices or interest rates applicable to different currencies, and unlike the defunct Bretton Woods system, it would cater for continual adjustments in exchange rates.

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By Jeff at 10:49 PM 0 comments links to this post

Monday, September 05, 2011

Great Posting from Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

By Jeff at 10:46 PM 2 comments links to this post

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Child Poverty Grows

One of the most distressing statistics of the last decade is the rapid increase in child poverty.

Child poverty afflicted nearly 15 million children, or 20 percent of America’s juvenile population, according to a new study released on Wednesday.

The report is written by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and is based on data from a number of sources, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Delinquency Survey and U.S. Census Bureau.

According to NPR, more than 30 million children were in households where no parent had a full-time year-round job.

In totality, the child poverty rate grew about 18 percent over the past decade.

The impact of child poverty can be devastating and long-lasting. Researchers found that low-income children are likely to suffer academically, economically and socially long after their parents have recovered. Child poverty also leads to less of a likelihood to find gainful employment in adulthood.

Can we seriously be considering austerity measures at a time when child poverty is so quickly on the rise? Are we OK with throwing away 20% of our future and if we do, wouldn’t we just spent the saved money in the criminal justice system somewhere down the line?

Actions have consequences and austerity at this time in our history is counter productive. President Obama has so far played right into Republican hands by starting negotiations from a position in the center while the Republicans have been unwilling to compromise.

Mitch McConnell stated that defeating Obama was his number one priority and America’s children are now collateral damage. Should a Republican win the Presidency next year then America as we have known it will be officially dead. Will American’s pay close enough attention to what is actually happening to stop this or will they be fooled into once again voting against their own best interests? I am afraid for the future of this country for the first time in my life.

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By Jeff at 6:43 PM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Leave it to A Comedian to Speak the Real Truth

By Jeff at 12:38 AM 0 comments links to this post

Monday, June 13, 2011

Ten Charts that prove the US is a Low Tax Country

By Jeff at 11:12 PM 1 comments links to this post

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Poverty hits 50-year high, U.S says – latimes.com

Posted on by under Bailouts, Balance Budget, BankingFinancialReform, BankingIndustry, Big Banks, Big Oil, Billionaires, CEO Corruption, Cheap Labor, Citiens United, Class Warfare, Inflation, Millionaires, Profits, War On Labor, Workers, WorkingClass

U.S. poverty totals hit a 50-year high

Census Bureau’s grim statistics show recession’s lingering effects, as young adults move back home and 1 million more Americans go without health insurance.

Census

Men line up for free lunches at the Union Rescue Mission. Overall, poverty was generally higher than the national rate in states with high unemployment and in the South. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times / September 14, 2011)

By Don Lee, Noam Levey and Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times

September 14, 2011

Reporting from Washington—

In a grim portrait of a nation in economic turmoil, the government reported that the number of people living in poverty last year surged to 46.2 million — the most in at least half a century — as 1 million more Americans went without health insurance and household incomes fell sharply.

The poverty rate for all Americans rose in 2010 for the third consecutive year, matching the 15.1% figure in 1993 and pushing many more young adults to double up or return to their parents’ home to avoid joining the ranks of the poor.

Taken together, the annual income and poverty snapshot released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau underscored how the recession is casting a long shadow well after its official end in June 2009.

And at the current sluggish pace of economic growth, analysts don’t expect many of these indicators of economic and social well-being to turn better soon.

Census officials wouldn’t say definitively what caused the surge in poverty, but it was evident that the root of the continuing misery was the nation’s inability to create jobs.

The total number of Americans who fell below the official poverty line last year rose from 43.6 million in 2009. Of the 2.6-million increase, about two-thirds of the people said they did not work even one week last year.

Those with jobs were much less likely to be poor, but the recession and weak recovery have wiped out income gains of prior years for a broad spectrum of workers and their families. Inflation-adjusted median household income — the middle of the populace — fell 2.3% to $49,445 last year from a year ago and 7% from 2000.

“It’s a lost decade for the middle class,” said Sheldon Danziger, a poverty expert at the University of Michigan.

The number of poor children younger than 18 reached its highest level since 1962, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

Poverty reached a record high for Latino children, who Frey said accounted for more than half the overall increase in poor children last year.

Blacks had the highest child poverty rate at 39%, up more than 3 percentage points from last year.

Overall, poverty was generally higher than the national rate in states with high unemployment and in the South. Mississippi had the highest poverty rate last year, at 22.7%, and New Hampshire had the lowest, 6.6%.

The share of Californians who fell below the poverty line rose last year to 16.3%, up a full percentage point from 2009.

The state’s median household income, meanwhile, plunged 4.6% to $54,459 — marking the largest single-year decline on record, according to the California Budget Project.

Christopher Noack, 25, had little choice last year but to move back into his parents’ home in the Central California town of Salida. The high school graduate tried to support himself on retail jobs and, for a while, lived in an apartment with a friend, even taking on extra household chores to pay a lower share of rent. But that wasn’t enough.

“It feels like life is on hold,” said Noack.

“Every now and then, I will see someone who I used to know in high school, who I know got a job. They will be having a business lunch or be on the way to the airport, and one out of 10 times I will get a twinge of jealousy because, just simply, I don’t know anybody who could get me on a path like that.”

Noack’s frustrations are shared by many others in his age group, including college graduates.

Overall, the number of 25- to 34-year-old men and women who were living with their parents last spring totaled 5.9 million — a 25.5% increase since the recession began in 2007.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Poverty hits 50-year high, U.S says – latimes.com

How to Create More Jobs By Lowering Wages: Texas and America

Posted on by under Bailouts, Balance Budget, BankingFinancialReform, BankingIndustry, Big Banks, Big Oil, Billionaires, CEO Corruption, Cheap Labor, Citiens United, Class Warfare, Inflation, Millionaires, Profits, War On Labor, Workers, WorkingClass

Perry and Romney can duke it out over who created the most jobs, but governors have as much influence over job growth in their states as roosters do over sunrises.

States don’t have their own monetary policies so they can’t lower interest rates to spur job growth. They can’t spur demand through fiscal policies because state budgets are small, and 49 out of 50 are barred by their constitutions from running deficits.

States can cut corporate taxes and regulations, and dole out corporate welfare, in efforts to improve the states’ “business climate.” But studies show these strategies have little or no effect on where companies locate. Location decisions are driven by much larger factors — where customers are, transportation links, and energy costs.

If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety.

How to Create More Jobs By Lowering Wages: Texas and America

PrideSource – Granholm cuts deal, keeps AIDS funding in the ‘Net’

Posted on by under Bailouts, Balance Budget, BankingFinancialReform, BankingIndustry, Big Banks, Big Oil, Billionaires, CEO Corruption, Cheap Labor, Citiens United, Class Warfare, Inflation, Millionaires, Profits, War On Labor, Workers, WorkingClass

Granholm cuts deal, keeps AIDS funding in the ‘Net’

By Matthew J. Levin

Originally printed 1/8/04 (Issue 1202 – Between The Lines News)

LANSING – Governor Jennifer Granholm and Michigan’s Republican controlled Legislature forged a budget deal in December, effectively erasing a $920 million state budget hole. A holiday package of compromises, the balanced budget included a six-month delay of the 2004 income tax cut originally slated for January (a GOP tax cut that saves the average Michigan citizen $12 over a calendar year).

The deal involved no cuts to AIDS/HIV funding, which remained just above $29 million.

In addition to praising the six-month delay as good common sense, Granholm and Democrats emerged from negotiations touting the deal as one that protects funding for schools, health care, as well as the fragile safety net that buttresses the population’s less fortunate. “This was a good compromise and very good for [Michigan’s] citizens,” said Granholm. “I’m very pleased.”

Republicans also came away happy, pointing to lower business taxes and additional governmental cuts resulting from the agreement.

Initially, the tax freeze was the main obstacle to a bipartisan settlement. The freeze initially sailed through the Senate without debate, but then stalled in the House. Maverick GOP members, upset that the governor had bypassed them by cutting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming), refused to put up enough votes. But when all was said and done, 17 House Republicans joined all 47 House Democrats to pass the legislation two days later.

Budget cuts aren’t a feel-good celebration for anyone, especially when the task involves trimming $920 million from a state already thin from a massive summer budget cut of almost $1 billion.

PrideSource – Granholm cuts deal, keeps AIDS funding in the ‘Net’

Davis man, arrested with 64 pounds of marijuana, pleads not guilty in Neb.

Posted on by under Crime, DrugCartel, DrugPolicies, IlleagalizingMarijuana, Marijuana, PrivatePrisons, Profits

Legalizing Marijuana will improve our economy and diminish Mexican Drug Cartel profits. Cannabis is the world’s strongest fiber, and over 2500 products can be made from it medicines, paper, clothing, and even food this will save our forest cutting down green gas house effects saving our environment.

rrested with 64 pounds of marijuana, pleads not guilty in Neb.

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