Tag: Jim Webb
Mar 15 2010
“Coffee Party Fact Check”
Jan 28 2010
Jump start that Engine, Help Small Business to Hire
Obama: Small Business Key for Recovery
Kent Bernhard, Jr. — Jan 27, 2010
The president proposed eliminating all capital-gains taxes on small-business investment, creating tax incentives for small businesses to hire new workers and raise the wages of those they already employ, and steering $30 billion in money from the Wall Street bailout to community banks to lend to small businesses.
“Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America’s businesses. But government can create the conditions necessary for businesses to expand and hire more workers,” Obama said. “We should start where most new jobs do–in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.”
http://www.portfolio.com/busin…
OK, how will Small Business, get the help they need, to put Americans back on the Road to Recovery?
Dec 04 2009
The half-hearted, Greening of America, via China, Spain, Poland …
Elusive Goal of Greening U.S. Energy
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, Dec 2, 2009
The Great Green Hope for lifting America’s economy is not looking so robust.
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Growth in clean energy industries and in green jobs has been considerably slower and bumpier than anticipated, industry experts say.
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Last week, the Gamesa wind turbine plant in western Pennsylvania announced it was laying off nearly half its 280 workers. Last month, General Electric said it would close a solar panel factory in Delaware
[…]
There are myriad reasons why green jobs have grown more slowly than hoped. The clean energy component of the $787 billion stimulus package has only recently started to kick in. Energy experts say that banks, which have been reluctant to lend generally, have been especially loath to lend for alternative energy projects.And renewable-energy companies are hesitating to invest in new plants and equipment before Congress enacts new environmental mandates, like cap and trade, to limit carbon emissions.
[…]
Feb 21 2008
Cruel, Callous and Uncaring in the Extreme
I’ve written a bit about Bush’s despicable abuse of our military personnel, treating them as little more than props in his juvenile cowboy fantasy. Well, it just keeps coming. Joseph L. Galloway of McClatchy Newspapers has this bit of encouraging news:
Sen. James Webb, D-Virginia, a Vietnam veteran, has been doggedly pursuing passage of a new GI Bill aimed at helping these new wartime veterans get that education by giving them much the same educational benefits that were extended to their grandfathers after WWII.
Under his bill, which has attracted three dozen other sponsors, the government would resume paying full college tuition for these veterans for a period linked to their times in uniform, but for no more than 36 months or four academic years. Every eligible college veteran also would receive a check for $1,000 a month to help cover living expenses.
This would cost the government about $2 billion a year, which is about what we’re presently spending every 36 hours in Iraq.
President George W. Bush and the Pentagon oppose any such improvement of this miserly benefit for our young veterans. Why? The president says it would cost too much and be too hard to administer, and he’s threatened to veto Webb’s bill if it ever passes.
The Pentagon says that if you offer more realistic college benefits, too many troops might decide to leave at the end of their enlistments and take advantage of it. And that, they say, would only make it even harder to find and enlist enough recruits to man our wars.
It would cost too much. What we spend every day-and-a-half on Bush’s Iraq disaster is too much to spend to ensure that those of our military personnel who survive Bush’s disaster can come home to a promise of an education. Because if they can get an education, they won’t want to re-enlist! Could it be more clear that the Pentagon is deliberately taking advantage of lower-income Americans to provide cannon fodder for Bush’s war?
Feb 13 2008
Sens. Feinstein, Clinton, Webb: Exactly whom do you represent?
The passage of the Senate version of the FISA bill today – a bill which includes, amazingly, retroactive immunity from civil damages for repeated felonious violations of the Constitution – is a low point for the “Democratic” Senate of the 110th Congress.
And it leaves me wondering, just like the passage of the odious bankruptcy bill before it: Exactly WHICH constituency of those senators who voted in favor of it was clamoring for its passage?
Dec 03 2007
Webb of Frustration
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Senator Webb’s appearance on Meet the Press was much better than he is given credit for here. Rather than paraphrase what he said, I would like to explore further what he actually said on the issues.
I’ll quote and add some thoughts from the actual transcript of the show.
Hopefully, we can agree to disagree with Senator Webb while appreciating his clarity and understanding of the issues.