| Here are stories published today |
|
Tag Archives: BP
The Obameter: Tracking Obama’s Campaign Promises …from PolitiFact
PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.
No. 2: Eliminate all oil and gas tax loopholes
“Eliminating special tax breaks for oil and gas companies: including repealing special expensing rules, foreign tax credit benefits, and manufacturing deductions for oil and gas firms.”
No. 3: Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups
“Barack Obama understands that small businesses are the engines of our economy, and he will eliminate all capital gains taxes on investments in small and start-up firms.”
No. 4: Extend child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes
Will extend aspects of the Bush tax cuts such as child credit expansions and changes to marriage bonuses and penalties.
No. 5: Expand the earned income tax credit
Expand the earned income tax credit for workers without children and taxpayers with more than three children. Equalize threshholds for married filers and head of household filers.
No. 6: Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes
“Will create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to identify and invest in the most compelling advanced manufacturing strategies. The Fund will have a peer-review selection and award process based on the Michigan 21st Century Jobs Fund, a state-level initiative that has awarded over $125 million to Michigan businesses with the most innovative proposals to create new products and new jobs in the state.”
No. 7: Double funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program that encourages manufacturing efficiency
“The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) works with manufacturers across the country to improve efficiency, implement new technology and strengthen company growth. This highly-successful program has engaged in more than 350,000 projects across the country and in 2006 alone, helped create and protect over 50,000 jobs. But despite this success, funding for MEP has been slashed by the Bush administration. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the MEP so its training centers can continue to bolster the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers.”
No. 8: Include environmental and labor standards in trade agreements
“He will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world”
No. 10: Expand the child and dependent care credit
Expand and make refundable the child and dependent care credit.
No. 11: Require publicly traded financial partnerships to pay the corporate income tax
Require publicly traded financial partnerships to pay the corporate income tax.
No. 12: Create an international tax haven watch list
Create an international tax haven watch list of countries that do not share information returns with the United States.
No. 14: Close loopholes in the corporate tax deductibility of CEO pay
Congress has set rules regarding the tax deductibility of the salaries of CEOs, but forms of non-salary compensation have become popular. Obama would look at revamping definitions of compensation.
No. 15: Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
Create a $10 billion fund to help homeowners refinance or sell their homes. “The Fund will not help speculators, people who bought vacation homes or people who falsely represented their incomes.”
No. 16: Increase minority access to capital
“Strengthen Small Business Administration programs that provide capital to minority-owned businesses, support outreach programs that help minority business owners apply for loans, and work to encourage the growth and capacity of minority firms.”
No. 17: Require economic justification for tax changes
Adopt the economic substance doctrine, a policy that states that tax changes must have significant economic justification, as a federal law.
No. 18: Provide option for a pre-filled-out tax form
Will direct the Internal Revenue Service to “give taxpayers the option of a pre-filled tax form to verify, sign and return to the IRS or online. This will eliminate the need for Americans to hire expensive tax preparers and to gather information that the federal government already has on file.”
No. 19: Create a mortgage interest tax credit for non-itemizers
Create a refundable tax credit equal to 10 percent of mortgage interest for nonitemizers, up to a maximum credit of $800.
No. 20: Make permanent the Research & Development tax credit
The Research & Development tax credit and the renewable energy production tax credit are intended to spur innovation in the private sector, but the tax credits have expiration dates under current law. Obama would make them permanent.
No. 21: Require automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans
Automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans for workers whose employers offer retirement plans.
No. 22: Require automatic enrollment in IRA plans
Require employers who do not offer retirement plans to offer their workers access to automatic IRAs and contribute via payroll deduction.
Page 1 of 26 next
Share this:
Don’t Let GOP Censor the Smithsonian
 |
 |
|
Incoming House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have thrown the weight of government into efforts by the Religious Right to shut down an acclaimed art exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. The Hide/Seek exhibit explores evolving expressions of sexuality in art. The Religious Right — in this instance led by the always-hysterical Bill Donohue and his fringe Catholic League — and its allies in Congress have been quick to try to whip their base into a fervor over themes they didn’t even try to understand before condemning as “anti-Christian.”
Cantor ludicrously said the exhibit is an intentional attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season. And Boehner, Cantor and other right-wing leaders have attacked the exhibit as a questionable use of taxpayer money, even though Smithsonian exhibits — including this one — are privately funded. They are now threatening to go after Smithsonian public funding and even to launch investigations into Smithsonian exhibits.
After you sign the petition to Reps. Boehner and Cantor, you’ll be asked to call the National Portrait Gallery and urge administrators there to stand strong against the Right in defense of free expression.
The Gallery was quick to cave on one piece of the Hide/Seek exhibit which was singled out by the Right: a video which included an 11-second segment depicting a Crucifix with ants crawling on it, a statement about the suffering of AIDS victims at the time the video was produced. The video, by the artist David Wojnarowicz, who himself died of AIDS in 1992, had been on display for a month without a single complaint from any museum attendees. The only complaints the Portrait Gallery received about the video or any parts of the exhibit were from Religious Right activists from around the country who had not actually seen the art. In a twist of sad irony, these activists were successful in getting the video taken down exactly one day before World AIDS Day. Hide/Seek is a courageous exhibit, but it’s an outrage that the Portrait Gallery would not show equal courage in defending the exhibit in its entirety against right-wing censorship.
We need to speak up to make sure that there are no more capitulations by the Smithsonian, and to make sure that Republican congressional leaders don’t get away with their ridiculous political pandering to the radical Religious Right.
Reps. Boehner and Cantor, along with virtually ever other congressional Republican leader, are working hard to block all business on Capitol Hill… holding the country hostage by insisting that no much-needed measures be passed until the Bush tax cuts are extended for the richest 2% of Americans… and all the while attacking the president for not doing enough to create jobs. Yet THIS is how they want to spend their time and taxpayer dollars — kowtowing to right-wing zealots like Bill Donohue by attacking the arts and investigating museums.
Shame on them.
Sincerely,
Michael Keegan, President
Share this:
PASS The DREAM ACT
|
|
 |
|
|
Share this:
Women’s Progress in Peril – Help Us Now
If the final days of the 111th Congress are any clue, you and I have our work cut out for us in 2011. Earlier this month, 58 Senators voted to bring an important bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, to the floor of the Senate for a full debate and vote. This measure would help close the continuing and shameful disparity between men’s and women’s wages. But in highly polarized Washington, 58 votes are not enough. Needing 60, this critical reform died without ever receiving a vote on the merits. We have fought too long and too hard for women and families to let injustices like this stand. It’s a sign of the times that our Board has issued this challenge. For more than 38 years, the National Women’s Law Center has led the way for women and families — in the classroom, in the workplace and in society as a whole. Our team of experts, lawyers and advocates is a formidable force for women in America today. The coming year will be a tough one, but frankly we’ve been here before — and prevailed. And with your help, we can prevail again. Here is a glimpse of some of the major challenges that we will take on in 2011, marshalling all of our experience, savvy and skill:
We’re up against what will certainly be one of the most challenging sessions of Congress in recent years, with many more Members hostile to core rights and programs critical to women’s lives. But if we’ve learned one thing in our 38 years, it’s this — that victories are possible even in the toughest of times. Please give generously. For women and families everywhere, you have our deepest thanks. Sincerely,
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Be a Seed for Change 
You must be logged in to post a comment.