Monthly Archives: August 2011

Three Charts To Email To Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law

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Problem: Your right-wing brother-in-law is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about “Obama spending” and “Obama deficits” and how the “Stimulus” just made things worse. Solution: Here are three “reality-based” charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.
Spending

Bush-Obama Spending Chart

Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.
Deficits

Bush-Obama Deficit Chart

Notes, this chart includes Clinton’s last budget year for comparison.
The numbers in these two charts come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. People who claim that Obama “tripled the deficit” are either misled or are trying to mislead.
The Stimulus and Jobs

Bush-Obama-Jobs-Chart

In this chart, the RED lines on the left side — the ones that keep doing DOWN — show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines — the ones that just go UP — show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.
It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.
Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!
More False Things
These are just three of the false things that everyone “knows.” Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is “going broke”, government spending “takes money out of the economy.”
Why This Matters
These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama — tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want — when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Local Girl Makes Good

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From Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk:
California Women Lawyers Selects Hannah-Beth Jackson for Fay Stender Award

Santa Barbara attorney and former Assemblywoman will be honored Sept. 15 during State Bar convention
California Women Lawyers will honor former Assemblywoman and Santa Barbara attorney Hannah-Beth Jackson with its prestigious Fay Stender Award on Sept. 15 at its annual dinner and membership meeting during the State Bar convention at the Westin Hotel in Long Beach.
The dinner keynote speaker will be California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who presides over a female majority court.
The annual award is given to a feminist attorney who, like Stender, is committed to the representation of women, disadvantaged groups and unpopular causes, and whose courage, zest for life and demonstrated ability to effect change as a single individual make her a role model for women attorneys.

Please click through to the article for more.

Leafs and Volts

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In the last week I have seen six (Nissan) Leafs and three (Chevy) Volts in my area. I’m in Redwood City/Menlo Park, in the Silicon Valley area, so you would expect more rapid adoption of electric cars. (The very first Leaf sold in the United States was in Redwood City.) But still, this is more than I expected and a lot of the Leafs still have the dealer plates. So they were probably back-ordered and a shipment just arrived.
My aunt is considering buying a Leaf. I’m thinking of getting the new Ford Focus Electric. We have a 2007 Focus, and we love it. My Honda Accord is 11 years old now… and the electric Focus comes out soon…
Here’s the thing about electric cars. Have you ever had to repair your refrigerator motor? Almost the only maintenance you’ll ever need on an electric car is replacing tires and lubricating bearings. There is no water pump. There is no timing belt. No valves to adjust. No fuel filter. No oil changes. No exhaust system…
One more thing: Ford and SunPower announce deal to bundle electric cars with rooftop solar power Ford has teamed up with our own SunPower to offer a special deal on a rooftop solar system. The system doesn’t directly charge the car — the system feeds power into the grid during the day and you charge the car at night from the grid. You could make a profit on the power, by the way, if you only count the car-charging, but it will knock down your electric bill enough to pay for itself either way. From the story,

The “Drive Green for Life” program is designed to provide the cars’ owners the opportunity to fuel their vehicles with clean energy and have a carbon-free driving experience.
SunPower will offer a 2.5-kilowatt rooftop system, which should provide enough electricity to fuel an electric car that travels about 1,000 miles per month, for less than $10,000, after the federal tax credit. Typically, SunPower charges at least $18,000 for a system of that size.
“This is a great opportunity to take solar mainstream,” said SunPower CEO Tom Werner. “We’re thrilled to provide electric car owners with a clean source of fuel.”

So here we are, finally getting away from being tied to the oil system and the (literally) centralized power structure.
Update – Saw two more Leafs just this evening.