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State employees, retirees (LA VERITE) seeking contributions to finance litigation against state, Jindal over OGB fund raid

December 11, 2014 by tomaswell

 

A group of state employees and retirees is attempting to raise funds to finance a lawsuit against Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Division of Administration over the pirating of nearly a quarter-billion dollars of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) reserve fund.

LA VERITE (French for Truth, but also an acronym for Louisiana Voices of Employees and Retirees for Insurance Truth and Equity) is soliciting donations to help pay the legal fees required to file and to pursue the litigation to prevent Jindal from dipping further into what once was a reserve fund of more than $500 million in order to balance his perpetually out-of-kilter state budget.

Below is a letter LouisianaVoice received from LA VERITE which is self-explanatory:

GIVE YOURSELF A CHRISTMAS GIFT –

INVEST IN YOUR FUTURE

 DONATE TODAY TO SUE BOBBY JINDAL AND

STOP THE OGB HEALTH PLAN CHANGES THAT WILL KEEP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FROM HAVING AFFORDABLE INSURANCE AND HEALTH CARE

Are you ready to join the fight to stop Bobby Jindal’s illegal destruction of the Office of Group Benefits?  You can be a part of the challenge to Bobby Jindal’s plan to prevent state employees and retirees from having decent, affordable, comprehensive health insurance.

 PLEASE DONATE WHATEVER YOU CAN AFFORD TO LA VERITE’ SO WE CAN FILE A LAWSUIT TO STOP THE CRIPPLNG INCREASES IN OUT-OF-POCKET (YOUR POCKET) COSTS OF THE NEW HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS TAKING EFFECT ON MARCH 1, 2015. 

 We cannot file the lawsuit until funds have been raised to do so.

 Please send a check or money order as soon as possible to:

LA VERITE’

7575 Jefferson Hwy. #35

Baton Rouge, LA  70806

 HELP STOP THE ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL THEFT OF

YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY.

Jindal plans to balance the state budget on us – state employees and retirees.  Can you afford to pay for his giveaways to his rich friends through tax breaks that have drained the state budget?  We will be paying for Jindal’s corrupt practices long after he is gone.  See the news story below:

From The Advocate: ‘State budget saving report brings questions’:

Marsha Shuler Dec. 08, 2014

The Jindal administration is two-thirds of the way toward achieving savings called for in the state’s $25 billion budget for the current fiscal year, officials told a legislative committee Monday….The administration updated the committee on goals contained in the Governmental Efficiencies Management Support report released in June. The overall report, submitted by private consultants Alvarez & Marsal, identifies more than $2.7 billion savings or revenue generating ideas that the state will implement over the next five years across all areas of operations…. About $1 billion of the savings is expected to come from the state Office of Group Benefits which provides insurance to some 230,000 state employees, teachers, retirees and their dependents. Changes are currently underway, including increased premiums and shifting more out-of-pocket expenses to plan members.

*****************************

After years without merit increases, some state employees finally received a raise last year, and most received a four percent raise Oct. 1. Our paychecks would be approximately 20 percent more if we had received regular merit increases during the Jindal years. While Jindal pretends not to raise taxes, we state employees are being taxed in effect, to fund tax breaks for the very wealthy.

THERE WILL BE NO RAISE IN 2015 DUE TO THE CURRENT FISCAL CRISIS – A HUGE DEFICIT THIS FISCAL YEAR. Drastic mid-year budget cuts will soon be announced to attempt to deal with THE LOOMING $1.4 BILLION DEFICIT NEXT FISCAL YEAR.

Jindal has privatized OGB and raided the trust fund, so now we are facing increased premiums, imposition of deductibles where none existed before, and confusing plans that have been repeatedly changed so we cannot understand the coverage….all designed to further punish hardworking, dedicated public servants.  After withholding our merit increases for years Jindal now plans to impose crippling increases in our healthcare costs that most of us cannot afford.

Jindal and Kristi Nichols have refused to abide by the requirements of the Louisiana Administrative Procedures Act (APA) – actions which the Attorney General has ruled illegal, meaning their OGB agenda is not legal. They are thumbing their noses at the law, and jeopardizing the wellbeing of almost a quarter of a million Louisiana citizens. Help stop the most corrupt administration in modern state history from carrying out their plan to cause further financial harm to you and your family.

*********************

LA VERITE’ is a group of state employees and retirees seeking to bring a lawsuit to prevent Jindal and Kristi Nichols from forcing us into poorly designed, expensive health plans that we cannot afford.  Anyone can join LA Verite’ – in fact, you already belong if you are an active or retired Louisiana state employee.

LA Verite’ is French for TRUTH, and stands for LouisianA Voices of Employees and Retirees for Insurance Truth and Equity.

Contact us at LA.Verite2015@outlook.com

Remember: as a civil servant, you have the right to participate in activities concerning issues that impact you.  You may publicly support or oppose issues other than support of candidates or political parties (Civil Service General Circular Number 2014-021).  We have also consulted a state ethics attorney who assures that we are within our rights.  This effort is legal and ethical.

However, be assured that your donation to LA VERITE’ to help fund the OGB lawsuit will be kept confidential.  Your identity will not be made public.  Donations are not tax deductible.

Please share this information with co-workers.  Forward the email or print it out and pass it on.  Truth and equity in 2015!

 

Posted in Civil Service, Courts, DOA, Governor's Office, Health Care, Lawsuits, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Retirement | 13 Comments »

On 50th anniversary of Ferriday civil rights killing, read journalist Stanley Nelson’s Concordia Sentinel series

December 10, 2014 by tomaswell

Every journalism student in America should be making a pilgrimage to Ferriday, Louisiana, on this date to sit at the feet of and learn from Stanley Nelson, 59-year-old Editor of the Concordia Sentinel, a small weekly newspaper (circulation about 5,000) that serves up mostly local news, wedding announcements, obituaries and sports to the residents of Concordia Parish. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87090135/

For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Louisiana, Concordia Parish lies directly across the river from historic Natchez, Mississippi. Vidalia (not the home of the onion by the same name—that’s Vidalia, Georgia) is the parish (county) seat and Ferriday sits a little more inland in the heart of the rich delta that provides a living for the area’s soybean and cotton farmers.

Ferriday is the home of Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, Mickey Gilley, network television news anchor Howard K. Smith and Gen. Claire Chennault—quite a résumé for a town of fewer than 3500 residents (3,453 to be precise).

Clayton is another small town in the mostly farming-reliant parish and is best known as the home of the family cemetery of Jerry Lee Lewis, who son is buried there.

Nelson, a native of nearby Sicily Island, is a 1977 graduate of Wiley Hilburn’s journalism program at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. That was just about the time the late John Hays, who would become a pretty fair investigative reporter in his own right, was getting cranked up with his controversial Morning Paper in Ruston.

Nelson began his newspaper career at the Hammond Daily Star before moving back home to work at the Sentinel, the quintessential hometown paper. He could not have chosen a better mentor in the person of the late Sam Hanna, a legendary name in Louisiana newspaper lore (his son Sam Jr. now runs the family newspapers in Ferriday, West Monroe, and Winnsboro).

But make no mistake, Stanley Nelson has put his own indelible mark on the Sentinel.

In 1964, prodigal son Jerry lee, whose  marriage to his 13-year-old cousin caused a scandal that temporarily derailed his promising rock and roll career, had begun an improbable comeback by re-branding himself as an equally adept country music artist with songs like How’s My Ex Treating You?, What Made Milwaukee Famous Has Made a Loser Out of Me and She Even Work Me up to Say Goodbye. Nelson was eight years old at the time.

Jerry Mitchell, writing for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, wrote last April that shortly after midnight on Dec. 10, 1964, exactly 50 years ago today, Frank Morris, a black shoe repair shopkeeper, was asleep on a cot in the back of his store when he heard glass breaking. http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2014/04/26/small-town-editor-compelled-solve-mystery/8235145/

“He bolted to the front of the store and saw two men, one pouring gasoline on the outside of the building and the other holding a shotgun,” Mitchell wrote.

As a lit match dropped into the gasoline instantly turned the little shop into an inferno, the man behind the shotgun ordered Morris back into the building. By the time he exited the rear of the building, his feet were bleeding, his hair was on fire and the only remnants of clothing remaining were the elastic waistband of his boxer shorts and the shoulder straps of his undershirt.

Morris lived long enough to talk to the FBI but told agents he didn’t know his attackers.

The Justice Department, however, was too preoccupied with three earlier civil rights murders to actively pursue Morris’s killers. Only a few months earlier, the bodies of three civil rights workers had been discovered buried in a levee at Philadelphia, Mississippi (Neshoba County), and Attorney General Robert Kennedy directed the FBI’s efforts to solving those murders.

So why was Frank Morris killed? A couple of theories exist and both are plausible for the time. One says because he was the only shoe repair shop in town and because families then could generally afford only a single pair of shoes, both blacks and whites patronized his shop. He waited on whites, particularly white women, outside, on the porch of his store. Still rumors started by local Ku Klux Klan members said he flirted with the white female customers. Another story has it that Morris refused to repair a deputy sheriff’s boots at no charge and in so doing, offended the white lawman.

In February of 2007, Nelson who by then was editor of the Sentinel, heard the name of Frank Morris for the first time when the Justice Department released a list of victims’ names from unsolved killings during the civil rights era.

He wrote what he believed at the time would be his only story about the killing. Two hundred stories later, he is still writing. http://coldcases.org/category/publication/concordia-sentinel

Along the way, Nelson in 2010 was named one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He was nominated by LSU in the category of Local Reporting. His own book deal is now in the works after a novel based on his dogged pursuit of the killers of Frank Morris as well as at least four other victims in Concordia Parish and in nearby Natchez hit the bookstores earlier this year. Dr. Charles Colvin, the physician who treated Morris, also died when the airplane in which he was a passenger collided in mid-air with another aircraft at the Concordia airport in 1970.

The 784-page book, Natchez Burning, was written by Natchez resident Greg Iles and is the first of what is scheduled to be a trilogy by the author.

Nelson, while flattered that Iles based his book’s character on him, says there is little in common between himself and the book’s protagonist Henry Sexton, editor of the fictional Concordia Beacon. “He has a much more adventurous life than me,” Nelson was quoted in the Clarion-Ledger article. “He is a musician, has a girlfriend and is tech savvy—that’s something I don’t know a damn thing about.”

Frank Morris becomes Albert Norris in Natchez Burning and another murder victim, Joe-Ed Edwards, killed on July 12, 1964, is Joe Louis Lewis in the book. Similarly, the Silver Dollar Group, a real-life Klan offshoot, shows up in Iles’ book as the Double Eagles, from gold dollars known by that name.

“I thought that 2007 story would be my only one on the subject,” Nelson told LouisianaVoice. “But then the FBI reopened the case and the Southern Law Poverty Center got involved as did the Syracuse University College of Law, LSU journalism students, the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, and civil rights attorney Janis McDonald.”

Nelson said “scores of people,” including Jay Shelley of the Manship School of Mass Communications at LSU, have helped him in his pursuit of the killers, most of whom died as suspects before charges could be brought against them. One exception is Silver Dollar Group member James Ford Seale who, in 2007, was finally convicted in connection with the deaths of the three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Seale was the only member of the Silver Dollar Group to spend a day in prison.

“All of the sheriffs and district attorneys have had these as cold cases all this time and did nothing,” Nelson said. “It’s their responsibility to investigate cold cases. One could also blame the FBI for not being more diligent, but thank God for the FBI or nothing would have ever been done. We tend to blame others but we all are to blame for this,” he said.

But when all is said and done, everything done in these cases comes back to a single person: Stanley Nelson. http://www.hannapub.com/concordiasentinel/frank_morris_murder/

Some local residents were not pleased with his digging up old bones—literally and figuratively—but Nelson said the Hanna family stood behind him all the way. “Yes, I’ve been threatened,” he said, “but that goes with the territory. I’ve been cursed and called more creative things than I thought were possible. But the vast majority have been either silent or supportive.”

Iles said the inspiration for his Henry Sexton character was the idea of a lone journalist, covering all the local news that a small-town editor must cover and at the same time outpacing the FBI with his own investigations. “Stanley Nelson picked up the torch that was dropped all those years ago and continued the search for justice,” he said. “That’s true heroism.”

Robert Rosenthal, head of the Center for Investigative Journalism, calls Nelson “one of my heroes. He combines tenacity, courage and a special level of integrity that makes me proud to be associated with him.”

Wiley Hilburn and John Hays, were they still with us, would be pretty proud themselves.

Posted in Courts, Media | 5 Comments »

Some things are personal and transcend petty politics; things like watching a beloved pet dog named Penny die in my arms

December 8, 2014 by tomaswell

I found her in the middle of Range Avenue, aka LA. 16, the busy north-south thoroughfare that runs by my house in Denham Springs. She was a tiny black and tan puppy, probably no more than eight to 10 weeks old and her most prominent feature were those enormous ears.

At first we thought she might be a miniature pinscher but her ears were not trimmed nor had her tail been snipped as is common for the breed. Neither were her legs nearly long enough for a min-pin.

After considerable research, we finally determined she was a chiweenie, one of those so-called designer, or hybrid breeds—a cross between a Chihuahua and a Dachshund. She had the body of a Chihuahua and the ears of a Dachshund except instead of being floppy, they stood erect, large enough for a gust of wind to cast her airborne or so it seemed.

PENNY2

PENNY AT TWO YEARS, WITH FAVORITE TOY (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

When I married Betty more than 46 years ago, I told her I would always have a dog—and I have. But Penny, as we soon named her, became our very first indoor dog. As a puppy, she would leap repeatedly, attempting vainly to jump onto our sofa and the day she finally made it was a breakthrough for her as she was no longer content with lying on the floor.

That was 15 years ago and she was eventually diagnosed with a heart murmur and our veterinarian, Dr. Michael Whitlock started her on a regimen of heart medicine and diuretics to help keep fluid from building up in her lungs.

With advancing age and with her weakened condition, she eventually became unable to jump onto the sofa so I would lift her up and she would wrestle with a blanket until she could burrow under it to keep warm. She hated thunderstorms. Trembling, she would seek refuge from the storms under that blanket.

We used to laugh at my uncle Pete for the manner in which he would walk around holding his beloved Pomeranians but soon my daughters were laughing at me as I walked around the house with Penny cradled on her back, perfectly relaxed, in the crook of my arm. And I long ago lost count of the times I would take my afternoon nap on the sofa with her curled up asleep on my stomach, usually under that blanket.

Her healthiest weight was around 12 pounds but the combination of the heart murmur and the medication pulled her weight down to about half that. Dr. Whitlock wanted her weight around five of six pounds to keep the fluids down, so that was okay.

When those fluids would build up, she would develop a cough that wracked her tiny body, so he prescribed even more medication that created a new problem: dehydration. For that, he occasionally had to inject fluids, which seems contrary to her best interests. But as Dr. Whitlock explained time and again, we were walking a fine line between too much fluid and dehydration—plus whatever damage the necessary drugs might be doing to her kidneys and liver.

Dr. Whitlock, it must be said, was—and is—one of the most compassionate, caring veterinarians I could have ever found for Penny. He would even call me at home to check on her and it was his dedication to her care and wellbeing that prolonged her life for at least a year—maybe two or three—beyond what she normally might have lived. There were times when I was certain the end was near but he would give her a steroid shot that would pick her up for weeks or months at a time. I will forever be grateful to him and his staff for giving us that extra time together.

Up until about last Thursday, she remained in good spirits and had a healthy appetite. But on Friday, she had begun to slip into a more lethargic state and by Sunday she seemed almost catatonic and unusually weak. When I took her outside to take care of her business, I could see after a few minutes that she was too weak to even walk back into the house, so I gently picked her up and carried to her bed in my office. She refused to eat all day and simply sat up, staring into space as if she was afraid to lie down.

Around 1:30 p.m. I picked her up to take her to the sofa for our customary nap. As I held her—on her back in the crook of my arm as usual—she let out three quick yelps. Then her weakened little body, reduced to about four, maybe five pounds and simply too feeble to continue the fight, jerked twice and she was gone. Apparently, she’d had a heart attack.

I laid her on her bed and stroked her head as she continued twitching for a few minutes even though I knew she was dead. And yes, I cried. We grow attached to these trusting little companions that depend on us for their care and though I have almost always had special connections to my dogs, I had grown to love her as no pet before. And as someone once said, their love is unconditional: they don’t care about social status, race or gender. Treated with kindness, they return the loyalty and devotion tenfold. We could all learn from that.

Daughter Leah, upon learning of Penny’s death, sent me this poem:

IMG_5336

Nine-year-old granddaughter Baylee has already added to her Christmas list a request for a puppy “that looks like Penny because Grandma and Granddaddy are sad.” But there’s no way I would ever try to replace Penny. I couldn’t. Besides, I have a 17-year-old Chihuahua, Tia, which I inherited from daughter Jennifer and an outside dog, Blaze, a gift from granddaughter Lauren. Blaze is a chow-golden retriever mix and one of the friendliest dogs ever. He’s about two now. I’m 71 and if he lives a normal lifespan he could—and well might—outlive me, so I won’t be bringing any more dogs into my home.

The pain of losing Penny is just too great.

Posted in Politics | 51 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

December 7, 2014 by tomaswell

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his Jan. 17, 1961 Farewell Address.

“The best way for America to lead … is for America to rebuild our tools of hard power.”

—Gov. Bobby Jindal, speaking at, of all things, a Foreign Policy Initiative at a Wall Street Journal CEO Council’s meeting on Dec. 3rd.

Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables | 3 Comments »

Friends of Jindal weekly update reveals Jindal’s desire to commit even more American dollars to defense spending

December 7, 2014 by tomaswell

If you think Gov. Bobby Jindal has bankrupted this state with his squirrely economic policies, you need to read this.

If you are the least bit concerned about his decimation of higher education, you need to read this.

If his repetitive patchwork budgets and annual budget cuts alarm you, you need to read this.

If it bothers you that he has given away state hospitals, raided the reserves of the health plan for public employees and attempted to slash state employees’ retirement benefits while secretly having legislation introduced to augment the retirement of the state police commander by some $55,000 a year, you definitely need to read this.

If you believe he should have stayed at home to tend to the state’s business instead of gallivanting off to Iowa and New Hampshire in pursuit of a Republican presidential nomination, then by all means, you should read this.

In short, if you believe he has been a major disappointment in administering the affairs of a single state—Louisiana—you need to examine his grandiose plans for America, his plans to do to the nation what he has done to our state. You owe that much to yourselves and your children.

You see, an outfit called Friends of Bobby Jindal has a web blog of its own which, of course, is certainly their right. But curiously, in addition to touting the latest pronouncements, op-ed pieces written by Jindal and his appearances on Fox News, the page has a “DONATE” button that allows supporters to contribute to Jindal’s political campaign.

Jindal Weekly Update

But wait. What’s he running for? He is term-limited and cannot run for re-election as governor next year and he has steadfastly refused to divulge whether or he plans to run for President (though there are few who doubt it; his family members were discussing openly during his first inauguration in 2008).

We don’t know how we got on the mailing list, but we’re certainly glad we did. Otherwise, how else could we keep up with the activities of a man on the run like Bobby Jindal?

On the latest mail-out, a “quick recap of the news about the governor’s week,” we have stories about:

  • The First Lady’s travels to Eunice to promote the Supriya Jindal Foundation;
  • Gov. Jindal’s announcement of the expansion of Oxlean Manufacturing in Livingston Parish;
  • Louisiana’s joining other states in suing President Obama over his immigration order;
  • An op-ed piece by (yawn) Jindal criticizing Obama and calling for a repeal of Obamacare;
  • Jindal’s appearance on (yawn again) Fox News where he criticized Obama for trying to redefine the American Dream;
  • Another op-ed criticizing Obama for the president’s apparent failure to believe in American exceptionalism;
  • Jindal’s speech at a foreign policy form in Washington, D.C. in which he called for increased military spending.

It was that last one (actually first on the Friends web blog because we listed them in reverse order) that caught our attention. http://freebeacon.com/national-security/2016-gop-hopefuls-call-for-boost-in-defense-spending/

Our first reaction was: What the hell is he thinking, commenting on foreign policy and military spending when he can’t even balance the budget of a single state? But then we remembered it was Jindal and typically, he panders to the fringe element that adheres to the concept that we are the world’s policeman and that we must impose our will on others despite their resentment of our failure to respect their traditions and cultures. And we’re not just talking about Islam here. Remember Vietnam? For that matter, go back and familiarize yourself with how we took land north of the Rio Grande from Mexico. And to the American Indians (Native Americans, we one insists on political correctness), we are the original illegal immigrants.

Okay, we got off-track and started talking about his American exceptionalism op-ed and while the two issues are interlinked, let’s get back to his advocacy of increased military spending.

First and foremost, it is important to know that America already spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined. President George W. Bush’s defense spending, for example, eclipsed that of the Cold War.

Historian Paul Kennedy, in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, noted that powerful nations have an unsettling habit throughout history of becoming the leading economic and leading military power and then “overreaching with their military ambitions while their economies sputter past their prime.”

Kennedy said that even as the economic strengths are on the decline, growing foreign challenges force greater and greater military expenditures at the sacrifice of productive investment which he said leads to the “downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities and a weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense.”

He said the U.S. currently runs the risk of “imperial overstretch where our global interests and obligations are larger than our ability to defend them all simultaneously.

Kennedy wrote that back in 1987 but during her run for the Democratic nomination in 2008, Hillary Clinton, like her or not, said if $1 trillion spent in Iraq had been applied instead to domestic programs, it would:

  • Provide healthcare for all 47 million uninsured Americans;
  • Provide quality pre-kindergarten for every American child;
  • Solve the housing crisis once and for all;
  • Make college affordable for every American student, and
  • Provide tax relief to tens of millions of middle-class families.

A classic example of our failure to heed the warning of President Dwight Eisenhower when he warned of the importance of resisting the influence of the “military-industrial complex” is the tar baby this country is stuck to in the Mideast.

Ike warned the country during his farewell address of Jan. 17, 1961, when he said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

Back during the elder Bush’s administration, it was the defense of Kuwait against Saddam Hussein and Iraq—way back in 1991. That’s a quarter-century ago. Later, with Bush II, it was Saddam Hussein and WMD that have yet to be found. No sooner did W announce “Mission accomplished,” than we found ourselves in a conflict that, believe it or not, has now lasted longer than the Vietnam War—with no end in sight. That war has expanded into Afghanistan and now Iran with an invisible enemy called the Islamic State (IS) whom we cannot find, let alone fight.

And how much have those skirmishes cost this country? Click on this link to find out.

http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary

That $4.4 trillion includes not only the immediate $1.7 trillion cost of America’s Mideast policy, but the interest on loans to finance the war, the cost of support bases elsewhere in the world, homeland security, nation building (building infrastructure on the war-torn countries while neglecting our own infrastructure), retirement, disability and medical benefits for war veterans, etc., costs our grandchildren will be paying off after we are long gone.

And just how do we pay for these wars in Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan? World War II was financed by raising taxes or selling war bonds. Not so these modern wars, beginning with Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam; they’re financed almost entirely by borrowing which has raised the U.S. budget deficit (something of which Jindal should have a working knowledge), increased the national debt. The interest alone on Pentagon spending from 2001 through 2013 is approximately $316 billion.

To put expenditures in better perspective, consider that American taxpayers are paying:

  • $312,500 every hour for military action against ISIS (total thus far almost $1.4 billion);
  • $10.17 million per hour for the cost of the war in Afghanistan (nearly $800 million to date);
  • $365,000 per hour for the cost of the war in Iraq ($818 billion so far);
  • $10.54 million per hour for the total cost of wars since 2001 ($1.6 trillion);
  • $58 million per hour for the Department of Defense ($602.7 billion budget);
  • $861,000 per hour for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ($9 billion);
  • $2.12 million per hour for our nuclear weapon arsenal ($22 billion);
  • $37,000 each hour for Tomahawk Cruise Missiles ($385 million);
  • $1.33 million every hour for foreign military assistance ($13.8 billion to date);
  • $8.43 million per hour for Homeland Security ($804.5 billion since 9/11);

By comparison, here are some hourly expenditures by U.S. taxpayers for other services in 2014 (with the year-to-date expenditures in parenthesis):

  • $7.81 million for education ($81.14 billion, and don’t forget, Rick Perry wanted to abolish the Dept. of Education);
  • $3.04 million on the environment ($31.6 billion–ditto Perry on the EPA);
  • $2.71 million on foreign aid ($28.2 billion);
  • $4.9 million on housing assistance ($50.8 billion);
  • $36.91 million for Medicaid and CHIP ($383.6 billion);
  • $13.3 million for nutrition assistance ($138.1 billion).

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

And Gov. Jindal would have the U.S. commit even more money to the Pentagon, according to a grizzled old reporter a whole year out of college (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill).

Daniel Wiser, writing for something called the Washington Free Beacon (a sister publication to the Hooterville World Guardian of the TV series Green Acres, no doubt), placed Jindal squarely in the same camp as gunslingers John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a couple of veteran Senate saber rattlers.

Wiser said that Jindal released a paper in October calling for allocating 4 percent of the nation’s GDP to defense spending.

Jindal said the U.S. is “in the process of hollowing out our military,” the article said. Jindal added that “The best way for America to lead… is for America to rebuild our tools of hard power.”

It would be bad enough if an otherwise comparatively level-headed candidate like Rick Perry or Rand Paul (everything, after all, is relative) were elected, but if Jindal had a prayer of becoming president, this would be some horrifyingly scary stuff.

The good news is we don’t have to worry about that. Perry or Paul, on the other hand…

Posted in Budget, Congress, Economy, Education, Finances, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Politicians, Revenue, Senate, Supriya Jinda Foundation | 15 Comments »

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