Republicans' response to Obama's deficit-reduction plan -- which calls on millionaires and large corporations to pay higher taxes -- predictably consisted of two terms: "job creators" and "class warfare." Who are these job creators, anyway? They want you to think it's small businesses, but Obama's proposal to raise taxes on millionaires wouldn't affect 98 percent of small businesses. In reality, it would affect millionaires who, despite their wealth, haven't been creating jobs for some time.
Before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the state of Louisiana asked the Bush administration several times to fund the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, resources that would have gone toward building up drainage and flood-protection infrastructure in New Orleans. Instead, the federal government cut its funding every year, starting in 2002. A January 2005 memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) denied the project's last request before the storm, explaining that flood protection was not one of the administration's priorities; at the time, "fighting the War on Terror," "strengthening our homeland defense," and pro-growth economic policies took precedence, the OMB explained.
(AP Photo/Post-Crescent, Dan Powers) A Wisconsin teacher protests budget cuts
Today, Wisconsin voters head to the polls in the hope of recalling six Republican state senators who helped push Governor Scott Walker's union-busting agenda through the legislature. Democrats and other supporters of workers' rights have spent weeks organizing and protesting in preparation for the elections, which are a referendum on Walker's attack on collective-bargaining, education, health care, and Planned Parenthood.
Five of the six Democratic challengers are women. EMILY's List, the campaign organization dedicated to electing pro-choice, Democratic women to political office, has been aiding their campaigns. The Prospect spoke with Stephanie Schriock, the president of EMILY's List, about what the recall means for women.
By 2014, women with health insurance will be able to get condoms with a prescription, free of co-pay. Men, on the other hand, will have to pay for them.
(AP Photo/John Hanna) Kansas Governor Sam Brownback
In 2005, Texas created a tiered system it used to distribute federal grant money to medical clinics. Those at the bottom of the list were unlikely to receive any money at all. The point was to direct public funds away from family-planning clinics and abortion providers, so clinics like Planned Parenthood found themselves at the bottom. This spring, the Texas Legislature went further to create a three-tiered system that will likely leave Planned Parenthood with little to no funding.
