The GOP has announced their stellar new health care proposal. It sounds like the greatest thing since privatized social security. As if there wasn't enough of a problem with health care coverage in this country, the Republican party is now suggesting we eliminate employer provided health care. That way each individual would be responsible for obtaining their own health care. The government would then compensate by providing tax breaks for those receiving health care.
WOW. So where to even begin with the problems with this one.....
Well for starters, this proposed tax break for health insurance would undoubtedly be offset by the impending tax increase to cover our insurmountable defense costs. Additionally,
people working minimum wage jobs, living pay check to pay check who have their benefits automatically taken out of their paycheck are highly unlikely to use their increased take home money for health care.
Furthermore, all this will cause the insurance companies to do is raise their premiums even higher.Perhaps most important, nothing in this plan suggests this shift in policy would provide health care for a greater number of people. Rather it has been suggested that the number of people who live without health care would be unlikely to really change. In which case, what exactly is the point of shifting to a consumer choice system of health care? Such an adjustment is likely to cause a greater hassle for many people struggling alone to find a health care system suitable to themselves.

In his landmark speech to American University, President John F. Kennedy said the following:
"If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

Apparently Republicans in Congress are disputing the second to last condition of similarity of all human beings. The Democratic Congress has rightly decided to expand SCHIP, or the State Children's Health Insurance Program which offers health insurance to underprivileged children.

President Bush has vowed a veto, saying it is a step towards national health care and used more scaremongering about 'socialized medicine'. I never thought it possible for President Bush to be a worse drag on the Republican's Congressional ticket across the country, but the man likes to defy expectations.

While some Republicans have rightly flipped from the dark side, many are sticking with the President and refusing to get into the last lifeboat from the sinking U.S.S. Bush. Republicans aren't used to being in the minority, and don't feel like playing nice even on a bipartisan cause of making sure kids see doctors. What's next, we won't agree on troops being able to stay at home between deployments? Oh, that's right the Webb Amendment was killed by Senate Republicans. How about a bipartisan compromise to fix the open border and the labor shortage? Nope, also killed by the radical Republicans in the Senate.

It seems that nothing is safe from the Republicans' attachment to partisanship, even soldiers and children. For the sake of the congress and the country, it is time to come together on the few things we can agree on instead of giving into bitter divisiveness. Perhaps we don't all cherish our children's future.

Voter fraud in Indiana??
Have you heard of any big scandals of voter fraud in Indiana, because to the best of my recollection there hasn't been any. Why is the GOP so set on Voter ID? I honestly don't understand why. However, to me voter identification is another way in getting people to not vote, especially those in the lower income brackets.
Getting an ID can cost money and time. One would have to set time aside to get one and drive to the nearest location that gives one out. Agree with me or not, these are luxuries that not all of us can afford. I know right now with my more than three jobs and school, I have no time to run to the nearest DMV to get an identification of any sorts.
Lucky for me though I have a car. What about those that don't. Is the Indiana government going to supply a service to transport people to the DMV for those who can't get to one? They would have to, or else they are just suppressing more voters.
America needs to be done with this whole idea, its just another literacy test to the GOP.
Lets just hope that our highest court sees it as I do.

(sorry for the late post all) supresant

As chair of the College Democrats of Wisconsin, I've been going to a lot of kickoff meetings over the past few weeks. I've been to meetings at UW-Oshkosh, UW-Madison, and St. Norbert's, and a few more next week. In addition to putting a lot of miles on my car, I've been hearing about all the great things that College Dems across the state are planning on doing this year. At Oshkosh, everyone was excited about reelecting Rep. Gordon Hintz, who was elected to the State Assembly last year. In Madison, we heard from Rep. Mark Pocan about how great is is to be a College Democrat. And at St. Norbert's, I got to meet a group of really excited College Dems who are working to change their campus.

College Dems across the state are working to make Wisconsin a better place to live, work and go to school. What's your chapter doing? Let us know--leave your ideas and plans in the comments.

The Democratic Leadership deserves a round of applause for their efforts in passing the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007. The question is, will the Republicans in Wisconsin’s State Legislature make our students educationally bankrupt?

With college costs rising more than 40% in the last five years and more students taking out loans at high interest rates, times are more difficult than ever for students. Do to the hard work of the Democrats in congress the students have finally been provided with relief.

According to a Statement Released by the House Education and Labor Committee, The
College Cost Reduction Act of 2007...

Is the single biggest increase in College Financial Aid since the GI Bill at no additional costs to tax payers.

Cuts interest rates in half on subsidized student loans over the next five years.

Increases federal loan limits to provide borrowers with additional assistance in paying
for college and to help them rely less on costlier private loans.

Increases the maximum Pell Grant scholarship by at least $500 over the next five years,
ultimately reaching a maximum scholarship of at least $5,200.

These are just some of the great items included in the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007.

Democrats know how important it is to help their younger generation get through college… so they did something about it. We can only hope that the President signs the bill when it arrives on his desk. Out of all the issues that need prioritizing, it’s Education. Education is what prepares for the future. It is our knowledge base. It is the base stood upon in the real world. A world of increasing competition. America and its future generations need tools to continue the growth of the economy and keep America strong. We need to think about future benefits received from education when we consider its cost. The current cost is irrelevant when compared to the nations future. A nation or state that doesn’t aid to education will deprive students of their future, thus depriving the nation of its future. The continuation of this cycle will lead the nation into educational bankruptcy

This concept is fully understood by Governor Doyle and the Democrats in the State Legislature. I only hope some of the Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature are listening. Maybe then students in the State of Wisconsin will have educational assets to flourish in the 21st century.

I was at the grand opening of the new Milwaukee County Democratic Party headquarters last night. It was a great event filled with some wonderful speakers. One of them, Mayor Tom Barrett, said something to really struck me. He said that we are just three seats shy of taking back the State Assembly, three seats! That means we are three seats from being able to pass a budget that provides an increase in financial aid for students. That means we are three seats from being able to make necessary improvements to the UW system. That means we are three seats from being able to enact legislation to guarantee health care for all citizens.

Back in 2006, thanks to the hard work of college students around this state, we were able to elect three new Wisconsin State Senators: Pat Kreitlow, Kathleen Vinehout, and Jim Sullivan. Now all we need to do is get focused, get active, and get three new State Assemblypeople elected. Can we do it? We can and we must. We are just three seats away from having the ability to make Wisconsin great again!

Last evening President Bush addressed the nation from the oval office for the 8th time on the subject of the War in Iraq. This week in a small chapel in rural Wisconsin, the family of Cpl. Kieth Numberg is laying their son to rest, at the same time the Department of Defense has not confirmed 5 American deaths, which means that soon, perhaps tonight their families will be getting a terrible knock in their door. The President is again asking us to be patient, to wait just a little longer and then we will start to see the measure of progress in Iraq. Yet the facts on the ground are sobering, the Iraqi government after taking the month of august off, still cannot govern, the Iraqi army cannot defend iraq, tribal war lords are still in control of most of the provinces.

The President's plan is to have hundreds of thousands of American boys and girls occupying Iraq, for what he has admitted will be long after his Presidency, an unending war in the middle east. Thankfully Republicans and Democrats in Washington are standing up to the White House and demanding an end to the occupation. People all across the country are finally asking "why?" Why my son or daughter, why my nephew or neice, why my former student?

Nearly 100 Wisconsinites and 3,780 Americans have been killed, get involved on your campus, help end the war, help make sure that no other families have to have that knock on their door.

More time. Shocking. People should stop deluding themselves in the notion that some sort of concrete timeline will ever be given for troop withdrawal. The fact of the matter is that we are in too deep. While General Petraeus may be revered by both politicians and the media, as strong and intelligent, the fact of the matter is he is just another Washington big shot who will be taking the fall for the continuous problems in Iraq. But even then, who are we to believe? General Petraeus dragged on arguing that the situation in Iraq truly has improved, and that the number of civilian casualties is down from what it was a year ago, yet he fails to include Shiite-on-Shiite violence or Sunni-on-Sunni violence. Are those deaths not worth as much that we simply don’t need to even report them in our figures? The Iraqis themselves do not feel safer thanks to the surge. “More Iraqis say security in their local area has gotten worse in the last six months than say it’s gotten better, 31 percent to 24 percent, with the rest reporting no change,” ( Rothschild, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/12/3787/) The bottom line is it has become impossible to believe with any certainty any of the reports. How can we trust what we are being told when even the most basic figures are being manipulated?

None of us will ever forget the horrendous acts and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September the 11th, 2001. Just as those who went through Pearl Harbor and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert will never forget where we were when the fateful event took place, neither will we. What we should also never forget is that Machiavellian political minds will never cease attempting to exploit our national tragedy for their own gain. Republicans used the electoral strategy of scaring people into thinking an attack was imminent and that the only salvation was a Republican Congress. With the Congress and the presidency, however, they refused to implement the bipartisan 9/11 Commission’s recommendations to make America safe. In 2007, the first act the Democratic House did was to introduce and pass House Resolution 1, which implemented those recommendations. Instead of pursuing the war against the terrorists and their allies the Taliban in Afghanistan, President Bush led the country to war with Iraq, distracting us and diluting our forces for the War on Terror.

No one has the claim to September 11th.

Despite their strategy coming apart almost as fast as the Bush Administration, they haven’t quit using demagoguery and scare tactics. A conservative organization called the Young America’s Foundation is coordinating a national effort to get all College Republicans to organize a flag-planting and recognition ceremony of those who fell on September 11th. While this, in and of itself is a noble goal, the strategy guide they give reads like a campaign how-to manual, talking about building alliances with other conservative groups, getting conservative talk show hosts to plug the event, and getting a conservative speaker on campus. (http://students.yaf.org/activists/911/) What kind of organization wouldn’t get behind recognizing our innocent fallen civilians on that horrendous day?

After seeing the event for the first time last year and after becoming President of the College Democrats of UW-Eau Claire last Spring, I thought that if there was an event that College Republicans and College Democrats could participate on, it would be remembering September 11th. My invitation to offer both a sponsorship to the event as well as volunteers was turned away by our UWEC College Republicans, presumably because they want to own the tragedy just as the national Republican Party has tried to do. A co-sponsorship, even if symbolic would at least indicate that despite this country’s divisions we can agree on one thing, that those who died on that ominous morning must be remembered, and that the terrorists who caused it must pay.

It is time they realize that national tragedies such as September 11th, 2001 are not the tool of one party or another to use, not a ploy to win votes, and not a way to exploit people’s patriotism for political gain. It is time that we declare a truce on political warfare on the day where all in this great land are not Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, but all of us, Americans, somber and solemn in our remembrance of the fallen.

Last year Oprah told CNN's Larry King that she is for Obama. The famed daytime talk show host is now throwing her support behind presidential hopeful Senator Barrack Obama. In the past politicians have strayed away from having celebrities publicly support their campaign for fear of the association with celebrities day to day life. However, why is Obama letting Oprah show her support with this luxurious fundraising event? Is Oprah different somehow? Does her queen of the day time talk shows status give her more credibility? With her television audience of 10 million (according to Nielsen Ratings) can her support get out the vote? Oprah is known for her control of her audience. They read the books she reads and they buy things she buys. Will the vote the same way? Since Oprah has such a large following and could potentially gather the female/thirty something crowd to go out and vote. An increase in female voters could really help him against the other candidates. In this very unique election year we have already seen many records broken and many unprecedented campaigning activities.

However, could this be the start of the downfall of Obama? This whole situation could backfire on Obama. People may get mad at Oprah and say “How dare you tell me how to vote.” However we will just have to wait and see.

There are a lot of things I'd do with $133 million. Shoes come to mind, but that's just me...

One thing I'm certain I would not do with $133 million is take it away from the UW System. In fact, I’d be inclined to give that money to our Universities. Our public education has been one of the best nationwide, and is consistently home to high-quality professors and students. We have a tradition in Wisconsin of providing quality public education to as many people as possible at an affordable rate. It only makes sense to invest in an education system that benefits people statewide, especially when the benefits are so apparent. Why would anyone cut funding to one of our most valuable assets?

Cutting funding is exactly what the Republican version of the Budget would do. $133 million proposed cuts to the UW System, which, when added to the $294,405,300 in cuts that have been proposed since 2003, shows how little Republicans care for our education. As a public institution, the University System depends on these funds to function. These cuts would make our Universities less accessible and reduce the quality and affordability of education. This is not the tradition of excellence in education that Wisconsinites hold dear.

I may not have $133 million, but the Republicans do, and I’d like my money, please.

It’s said that a picture speaks a thousand words. I think, on some occasions, that numbers speak even more than that. So look at the Republican plan for UW System funding, and see what type of picture you get.

Highlights from the Assembly Republicans’ Proposed Cuts to UW Funding:
• $4.8 million from UW-Whitewater,
• $4.7 million from UW-Stout,
• $6.5 million from UW-La Crosse,
• $5.4 million from UW-Eau Claire,
• $4.5 million from UW-Stevens Point,
• $19 million from UW-Milwaukee, and
• $49.5 million from UW-Madison

And that’s not all the funding they’re cutting. They also plan to cut $4million from a fund to keep our best professors at our universities, and programs to keep students of color enrolled in school.

Not such a rosy picture, now is it.

Keeping in tradition with the long-held Republican belief that our public education system is both sinister and socialist, our GOP friends in the Wisconsin State Assembly are slashing and burning everything in sight. From Eau Claire to Madison over to Milwaukee up to Green Bay and down to Parkside, the cuts are in the millions of dollars. They know they will never be able to do away with the public school system, so they do the next best thing: suffocate it of all funding. While other states are busy providing for their respective public schools, our Republican assembly has decided that it would be more productive to destroy it. To destroy the free education that all Wisconsites are entitled to. To destroy the future of this state. And to destroy the credibility and integrity of the Wisconsin State Assembly. The time has come for all college students across the state to stand up to this Republican assault on education and reject their attempts to deprive us of an essential right.