[
House Republicans have called for nearly $1 trillion in cuts to vital
national services to pay for Katrina. But we can fully rebuild the
Gulf Coast without cutting services Americans need just by ending
Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. Please tell Congress today:
http://www.political.moveon.org/rebu...vKHzVq9CmA&t=1
]

[
Dear MoveOn member,

Last week, congressional Republicans responded to Hurricane Katrina by
proposing to cut nearly a trillion dollars from vital national
services, like health care for the poor and elderly, student loans,
Amtrak, and eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(again!).1 Republican leaders in Congress are now gauging the public's
response to see if they can get away with their plan. We need to show
them the answer is "no."

The cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, while huge, is far less than
what President Bush has given away in tax cuts to the wealthiest one
percent.2 National crises like Hurricanes Rita and Katrina are times
for all Americans to stick together and put in our fair share.

So today we're launching an urgent petition to Congress to fully
rebuild the Gulf Coast and pay for it by ending Bush's tax cuts for
the very wealthy, not by slashing vital services that Americans need.
If we can gather a quarter million signatures this week, we can show
them that this destructive plan just won't fly.

Please sign today:

http://www.political.moveon.org/rebu...vKHzVq9CmA&t=3

The Republican proposal, titled "Operation Offset," was authored by
the Republican Study Committee, a group of over 100 influential
members of Congress, including powerful committee chairs and members
of the Republican leadership.3 The proposal starts with support from
at least these 100 representatives, and they are looking to quickly
build momentum.

A full reconstruction of the Gulf Coast region is generally estimated
to cost around $200 billion.4 We could more than meet this cost by
rolling back Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for just the wealthiest one
percent of the country, which would save us an estimated $327
billion.5

"Operation Offset," however, calls for an astounding $949 billion
dollars in cuts over 10 years to vital national services.6—almost five
times the full cost of reconstruction. To further put that in
perspective, it's also more than 4 times what we've spent in Iraq.7

This plan is not about "offsetting," or rebuilding—it's about
exploiting this crisis to push their longstanding goals for America.
As conservative movement leader Grover Norquist has often put it, the
goal is to get government "down to the size where we can drown it in
the bathtub."8 This proposal is their latest attempt to drown the
public sector.

The excess of the Republicans' proposed cuts is almost unbelievable.
You can read the full proposal he


http://www.political.moveon.org/imag...vKHzVq9CmA&t=4

Here are just some of the most egregious cuts:

$225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance
program for the very poor.

$200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the
elderly and the disabled.

$25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control

$6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children

$7.5 billion cut from programs to fight global AIDS

$5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting
$3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and
Humanities

$8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate
students.

$2.5 billion cut from Amtrak

$2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative

$417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency

$4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free
schools program
And the list goes on and on.

Which and how many of these cuts move forward in Congress depends
largely on the public response this week.

As the reconstruction begins our country faces a basic question: Will
we respond to Katrina by banding together to solve national problems,
or by helping the wealthy and powerful cut and run while those left
behind fend for ourselves?

The radical Republicans have spoken up loud and clear with their
answer, and we must respond with ours.

Please sign today:

http://www.political.moveon.org/rebu...vKHzVq9CmA&t=5

Thanks for all that you do.


–Ben, Tanya, Matt, Justin and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, November 26, 2005


1 "Lawmakers Prepare Plans to Finance Storm Relief," The New York
Times, September 20th 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/na...al/21cong.html
Note: the $500 billion referred to this article only covers section 1
in "Operation Offset". The full proposal has six sections and calls
for total cuts of $949,674,000,000 over 10 years.
See the full proposal he
http://www.moveonpac.org/images/oper...vKHzVq9CmA&t=6

2 Center for American Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/22/...sive-spending/

3 The Republican Study Committee

http://johnshadegg.house.gov/rsc/about.htm

Some examples of prominent RSC members include:

RSC Founder Rep. John Doolittle (AZ), Republican Conference Secretary

Rep. Eric Cantor (VA) Chief Deputy Majority Whip

Rep. Richard Pombo (CA), Chair, House Committee on Resources

Rep. Joe Barton (TX), Chair, House Committee on Energy and Commerce

4 "How to spend (almost $1 billion a day)" Time Magazine, September
26th, 2005
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...106310,00.html

5 Center for American Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/22/...sive-spending/


6 Operation Offset, RSC Budget Options 2005
http://www.political.moveon.org/imag...vKHzVq9CmA&t=7

7 Based on a $196 billion dollar cost for the Iraq war to date.
National Priorities Project
http://costofwar.com/

8 "Grover Norquist: 'Field Marshal' of the Bush Plan", The Nation, May
14th 2001
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010514/dreyfuss


PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
]

ROFL Cliff, "MoveOn.org" in their TV ads just blamed Bustjust about
everutjomg hurricanes. Then too, supporters of "MoveOn" have pretty
well illustrated, over the last years, that they are not exactly "the
brightest bulbs on the street", and their efforts are obvous turning
the next election in order to gain the White House and place many, many
MoveOn supporters (and likly pricipals) into positions having 6-figure
incomes for "no show" type jobs. In fact, this goal wou;d be pretty
trasparent once 'MoveOn' revealed who their major financial
contributors are.

Face it, the finacial supporters of MoveOn are the already fat cats,
who now shield their identities.

Hmm, worth investigation I'd say.

With regards to "MoveOn.org", while I'm not likely the strongest
supporter of President Bush, I would have to say that the TV Ads of
"MoveOn.org" tend to shoot the liberals in the foot and create more
support for George W. because of their rabid silliness.

Then too, this is just my opinion.

Harry C.

wrote in message
oups.com...
| ROFL Cliff, "MoveOn.org" in their TV ads just blamed Bustjust about
| everutjomg hurricanes. Then too, supporters of "MoveOn" have pretty
| well illustrated, over the last years, that they are not exactly "the
| brightest bulbs on the street", and their efforts are obvous turning
| the next election in order to gain the White House and place many, many
| MoveOn supporters (and likly pricipals) into positions having 6-figure
| incomes for "no show" type jobs. In fact, this goal wou;d be pretty
| trasparent once 'MoveOn' revealed who their major financial
| contributors are.

If all you ever talked to were other disenchanted liberals who share the
same view of the world and look at everything that happens in the world with
Bush colored glasses, you'd also lose perspective of what the "regular
folks" think of how things are happening, so in turn their commercials look
fine to them, but they don't realize they're only preaching to the choir and
****ing off the "undecideds" who sense a bad taste when one of those
commercials come on. Sure it pumps up the base, but those aren't the ones
that need convincing!
As for the conservatives, they have no choice but to hear both sides, so
I think that crowd is much more in tune with the ones able change their
minds. Not to mention a couple other things they've got going for them:
1 Statistically, it turns out that liberals, being the biggest supporters
of abortion, are the ones more likely to have them. Given that most folks
grow up with similar political views of their parents, there are fewer kids
from these families, so in essence, the left is aborting their electorate.
The numbers are rather dramatic, and I was surprised when I read that
article awhile back.
2 Blue states tend to have more liberal governments and constituents,
thus their views on employers as "evil corporations" that need to be
oppressed in retribution, as well as creating laws that drive up the price
of housing, all in the name of "affordable housing." Thus insourcing
companies and companies that look to start a plant or an industry tend to go
to states that offer a more amenable business climate. Those states also
have a lower cost of living for families that are looking for that kind of
thing and employment to match, so the blue states' growth has been nowhere
near what the red states' growth has been. In essence of that point, the
electorate is moving to red states because that's where the jobs and low
cost of living is. Folks do vote with their wallets, regardless of how much
they say otherwise.

Since the electorate is becoming more divided on the above and similar
issues, the distillation out of families and conservatives (toward less
hostile climates) leave even less and less conservatives to balance out the
viewpoints, you wind up with groups like MoveOn.org that slap themselves on
the back and think they're doing such a good job because they never ask the
folks in the red states, the ones they drove out, how they're doing. Stuck
on stupid I think it's been called recently, and then all you have to do is
to repeat the process until it's too late. Not that not having any liberals
left is entirely a good thing, because the conservatives will start doing
the same thing and the pendulum will swing back, but obviously it will take
a few generations before you see it, not unlike the fifty years or so it's
taken to go form the 50's conservatism to the 00's liberalism. I think in
about twenty years or so you'll see my point.