Lots of money for campaigns here in Mass, encouraging news on unemployment
I wonder how many of the unemployed gave to these candidates?
Capuano raised 343,000, AG Coakley raised another 800,000, Pagliuca 350,000, Khazei did not have the figures, Brown 169,000, Brown did not respond to the Globe request.
The tiny little Mass company who got 6 million in funding from the latest appropriations bill hired a former chief of staff to Marty Meehan as their lobbyist. This tiny comapny who employees 25 people, with no product and no orders from the Navy, is "creating or saving jobs" according to Congresswomen Niki Tsongas's.
The top ten defense contarctors in 2008 gave an average of 2.7 Million each to federal canidates. In return for their invetsmanet, contractors received 88 million in tax payer funded ear marks. The largest single earmark in 2008 was for 588 million dollars for production of naval submarines which was rejected by the Navy itself.
120 House and Senate members have co signed a bill, The Fair Elections Now Act, which would replace wealth dodnors with small broad based donations and matching funds. Candidates would be required to collect 1,500 checks of 100.00 or less.
I'd love to see this happen in my lifetime.
I hear we are down to 8.7 percent, from 9.8.... unemployed here in Mass. Good to know we are crawling back, but still is bad news for to many.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 6:56 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Not sure the unemployment news is something good. Could be that some of the people being counted in the old numbers have run out of benefits so are no longer included in the system. I think the true measure of the economic status of the state is how many people formerly out of work get jobs last month. Why aren’t they reporting that number? I bet it is because that number is lousy and does not make for a “happy” story. I know I am still out of work, and so are many of my neighbors and friends.
Funding for campaign – these numbers are unbelievable. When so many people are in need, who are the people that think spending their extra money on campaign financing is better than spending it on stocking the shelves at a food pantry? The person who gets the Senate seat will be important for this state, I get that. But someone will get elected whether we give them money or not. If people just stopped contributing to anybody, then it would be a fair race. Do PS announcements, each candidate gets the same amount of time paid for by some state election committee which is funded by a piece of our taxes. We have got to stop throwing money at our politicians if we ever want to turn things around in this country.
Under employment is a huge issue right now. Being back to work does not mean you are out of the woods if you are working at a job making $15/hr and you formerly were make $80,000 a year. Where can we get information on things like that? I think the stories being reported are not always the ones we need to see. They try to paint a rosy picture of a dark situation and we fall for it all the time.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home