You can find more posts on climate change science, policy, and news on Climate 411.
 

Have you ever spent time scrolling through NASA's image gallery? Some of the pictures are absolutely mesmerizing. I particularly like "Blue Marble" (below the fold), which was stitched together using satellite data.
 
Satellites provide more than pretty pictures, though. Our ability to understand and predict climate change depends on continuous high-quality satellite data.
 
Unfortunately, this critical data stream is threatened by budget cuts and lack of political support. In 2005, the National Academies assessed the situation and deemed it "alarming". Three years later, the outlook has not improved.
 
Follow me over the fold to learn more about why this is important, how this critical resource is threatened, and what the next administration needs to do about it.

As you may have heard, members of the online progressive community - including many Kossaks! - have been working together to collectively and democratically craft a Netroots Platform. Now we're rolling out what we've created and asking what you think. Ferris Valyn's diary from earlier today is serving as the 'Mothership' as the planks are individually posted.

Without further ado, here's the Economy plank:

It is our fundamental belief that the American economy should be an economy that is democratically managed for the benefit of all the American people, not for the pursuit of corporate, government, or global power. We have seen in recent years that when government abdicates its responsibility to regulate the economy, chaos ensues and the working class suffers as a result. We believe in free enterprise and we support the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, but we believe that such enterprise flourishes only when the economy is responsibly managed by government on behalf of the people...

(crossposted at MyDD)

The New York Times is reporting on something that's not surprising but for its shocking scale -- the government of Iraq is sitting on a huge pile of money that they are not using for reconstruction, while Americans in increasingly dire straits continue to foot a bill that only a few of our leaders want to continue paying.

The soaring price of oil will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year’s end an American federal oversight agency has concluded in an analysis released on Tuesday.

"The Iraqi government now has tens of billions of dollars at its disposal to fund large scale reconstruction projects," said Mr. Levin, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in the statement. "It is inexcusable for U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves. We should not be paying for Iraqi projects, while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank," Mr. Levin said.

The Location of the Large Hadron Collider: Geneva, Switzerland and France.

Back in 1993, the Congress decided that the Superconducting Super Collider being built near Dallas, Texas was going too far over budget.  It was going to "Bankrupt" America with all of its cost overruns.  Bill Clinton tried to save the SSC program but budgets needed balancing and science seems to be the first victim of the budget axe.  But this Diary isn't about America's lost opportunity, it's about large hadrons!!

White House Announces Bush Administration to Leave a Record Budget Deficit of $482 Billion.

Since January when we began our campaign for the 5th District seat in the US Congress, I've consistently stressed that my biggest concern is the fiscal mess that has happened in Washington.  This week, White House officials admitted the Bush administration would leave office in January 2009 with a record budget deficit sitting on the books of $482 BILLION.   This record $482 billion deficit is coupled with a record debt of $9.5 trillion.  

On January 20th, 2001, when George W. Bush was sworn in to his first term in office and the Republican Party had control of both houses of Congress, the United States government had a record budget surplus, our economy was in a period of record expansion and the national debt was being paid down.  In fact, if the Bush administration would have continued the fiscally responsible polices from the 90's by continuing to grow the surplus and pay down the debt, the federal debt could have been retired by 2013.

In my previous dairy, I previewed California Governor's Arnold Schwarzenegger bizare tactics.  Here it is:  Working for Anold

It's a week and a half later and 'Ahnold' has gone ahead and cut most all full time worker to Federal minimum wage ($6.55), expects us to show up and work normally and attempted to lay of 22,000 non-full time workers.  Here's the executive order and his claims:  Governor Schwarzenegger Issues Executive Order to Address State’s Looming Cash Crisis

I will dissect the lies and misrepresentations below the fold.  Yes, I'm a State Worker (and I'm pissed.)

As the old joke goes, an out of touch CEO is informed by a junior manager that the company is losing money on every sale. The big-wig thinks about it about for a second, and then explains that that's OK, because the company is going to make it up with volume. Well, the joke's on us: that's how the GOP approachs our nation's finances.

Reagononomists, Neoconomists, and now McConomists keep trying to sell that same old trickle-down voodoo, promising the dramatic results are just around the corner. Sure, the deficit has exploded, middle class wages are stagnant or down for three decades, the super rich are getting richer still, and once again the economy is in the tank while fuel prices are through the roof. But really, we're assured over and over, it will work this time.

Why it's so simple! Giving giving gazillionaires more gazillions will create a growing economic tide lifting all boats, trickle down to grateful wage earners, and generate gads of tax revenue to shrink the massive deficit conservatives created by giving gazillionaires more loot.

The only problem -- well there's clearly a lot of problems not the least of which is the awfully suspicious coincidence that the GOP's reverse Robinhood scam happens to grotesquely benefit the same people telling us hardworking saps what a swell idea it is -- it doesn't work:

The Bush administration on Monday plans to project the U.S. budget deficit will soar to a new record of nearly half a trillion dollars in fiscal 2009 as the economic outlook darkens and Americans elect a new president.

So far McCain's economic policy is to keep doing the same thing Bush did; racking up huge debt by giving mega-rich people more money, only bigger and better, while confidently expecting different results than the serial failures so far produced by hare-brained conservative ideology. Greed would explain it nicely, maybe with a pinch of classic insanity. But given the quality of McCain’s economic advisors, his self-professed inability to grasp even the bare basics of modern macroeconomics, and the flawless track record of conservatism losing big money on every policy and initiative, maybe they really do hope to make it up with volume.

Wall Street is expressing concerns about a possible recession or even a depression.  All these prognosticators of gloom and doom have not fully understood the effectiveness of the Bush Administrations clever economic policies which are based on Friedman’s economic magic.

He's going out with a bang.

The White House has increased its estimate for next year's deficit to nearly $490 billion, a record figure that will saddle the next president with deepening budget problems in his first year in office, a report due out Monday shows.

The projected deficit for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is being driven higher by the continuing economic slowdown and larger-than-anticipated costs of the two-year, $168 billion fiscal stimulus package passed by Congress, said two senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the report. In February, President Bush predicted the 2009 deficit would be $407 billion.

The budget update shows this year's deficit headed under $400 billion, at least $10 billion less than projected, according to the two officials. That's partly because tax revenue held up reasonably well despite the weaker economy.

The rising deficit for 2009 marks a sharp turnaround for Bush's fiscal legacy. He inherited a $128 billion surplus when he came into office in 2001. It soon turned to red ink because of a recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the war on terrorism.

These numbers don't include the costs of our two wars, either.

The biggest budget deficit recorded to date was $413 billion in 2004. In today's dollars, that would be about $478 billion.

That was during the GOP trifecta, when they had control of all branches of government. If the last eight years have taught us anything, it's that Republicans have no clue how to manage our nation's finances.

All the news agencies are leading with this statement:

The next president will inherit a record budget deficit of $482 billion, according to a new Bush administration estimate released Monday."

But in typical media fashion, they act as stenographers to power first, and reporters of the truth only later, if at all. The AP article linked above finally gets around in its seventh paragraph to the full story:

The administration actually underestimates the deficit, however, since it leaves out about $80 billion in war costs. In a break from tradition — and in violation of new mandates from Congress — the White House did not include its full estimate of war costs.

There are some items up on News Unfiltered that may interest the community.

Speaker Pelosi says "President Bush has mortgaged our future":

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today after news reports indicated that the federal budget deficit will reach a record high of nearly $490 billion. The Bush Administration is expected to announce the exact figure later this afternoon. "President Bush has mortgaged our future with record deficit spending on the wrong priorities. An unnecessary and extraordinarily costly war in Iraq has turned record surpluses into record deficits. Meanwhile, our economy is in a severe economic slump as a result of this President's mismanagement."

Read more.

The Tax Policy Center revised their earlier analysis on the two campigns tax and revenue policies to address the criticism that what the candidates say on the stump differs from what the campaign staffs had provided, An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidate's Tax Plans. So how much of a difference in cost?

The difference from what McCain saysd on his speeches versus what his campaign staff claims is his economic policy is a whopping $2.9 trillion more over 10 years, and that is from reducing revenues by $7 trillion versus $4.2 trillion.  That is a whopping 65% increase in revenue shortfall.

Obama, on the other hand actually increases revenues by $400 billion from the relatively (relatively being key here) modest $2.8 trillion.  The Obama plan, as described in speeches, raises reduces tax revenues by just $2.4 trillion over the 1009-2018 period.

(cross-posted from Calitics)

Yes, you read that headline correctly.  Federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour, not California minimum of $8 hour.  The SacBee has this gut shot of a story.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sign an executive order next week that will reduce pay for more than 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour to preserve cash in the midst of a month-long budget standoff, according to a draft copy of the order obtained by The Bee.

Administration officials said the governor expects to take the action Monday.

How are these employees going to be able to pay for their groceries on $6.55 an hour, or fill up their car with gas, let alone pay their rent?  The short answer is they aren't.

This is going to result in a lot of employees needing governmental assistance for basic needs, not that the state has the money to help with that anyways at this point.  This is a crisis and this damn well better get some folks up in arms.

The government could have spent $1.7 million on every single U.S. highway bridge in the United States (the average inspection and maintenance program costs anywhere from $300,000 to $21 million per bridge).

...Or paid for every single enrolled college student in the U.S. to go to school... for 8 years.

...Or saved it all up to bail out 40 banks the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

...Or paid the current U.S. average Foreign Aid budget for 47.2 years.

...Or built 15-20 new international airports the size of Denver International.

...Or paid the entire population of my state (Washington) $70,000 a year – for 2.5 years.

...Or purchased 3,188,775.5 homes at the U.S. median home cost of $313,600 (there have been about 700,000 foreclosures in 2008 so far).

In order to pay for the debt we are stacking up,
Hollywood could hold a bakesale of sorts -- filming 542.5 blockbusters with a minimum gross equal to that of Titanic.

...Or, every man, woman, and child in the world could give the U.S. government $547.

America: land of innovation, of the can-do spirit, of Yankee ingenuity.

Americans were the first people in the world to declare independence from an empire -- and get away with it. Americans dug the Erie Canal, reversed the flow of rivers, invented powered flight and the skyscraper, harnessed the power of the atom, sent men to the moon and brought them back alive. We supplied the world with an abundance of food and high-quality manufactured goods. We defeated fascism, take credit for having defeated communism, co-founded the United Nations, absorbed tens of millions of immigrants and made a single people out of many. We are one goddamn amazing country.

Or at any rate, we were. Something happened to us around 30 years ago. Suddenly, things seemed so awfully difficult. Preposterous, even. Reducing poverty? Building a 200-mpg automobile engine? Signing the Kyoto Protocols? Manufacturing consumer goods domestically? Fighting crime and terrorism without recklessly abrogating civil liberties? Forget it. It's too hard. Too inconvenient. Too unprofitable. Too much of a hassle. Or it might mean that we had to follow the same rules as every other country, that our specialness didn't render us exempt.

We've turned into Emo Nation, for crying out loud.

The New York Times on John McCain's fact-free promise to balance the budget by 2013:

Mr. McCain’s main campaign promises, if fulfilled, would lead to huge budget deficits. Extending the Bush tax cuts, enacting more tax cuts of his own and staying the course in Iraq would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more, every year, than the small bore spending cuts he has specified. Mr. McCain cannot balance the budget on a crusade against pork and a one-year freeze in a sliver of federal spending. Either he has a secret plan to balance the budget or he’s blowing smoke.

It is safe to assume there is no secret plan.  [...]

Mr. McCain and his advisers must know that his numbers do not add up. But adding up is not their point. Their point is to perpetuate the fantasy that Americans can have ever bigger tax cuts and a balanced federal budget. They cannot. [...]

But feeding the fantasy is easier than presenting tough choices, and it worked for Mr. McCain’s Republican predecessors.

The Rovians on Mccain's team are wasting no time rolling out all the successful republican lies of the past.

For anybody who has to argue with people about this, look at the chart.

The bottom line is republicans are VERY EXPENSIVE.

Allow me to preface this diary by saying that this is something of personal interest to me, as well as being a bit of (hopefully) relevant social and political commentary, so I apologize in advance if it seems a bit emotionally charged.

I was witness last night to some rather terrible political shenanigans in my hometown of Winsted, CT.  For those who don't live in Connecticut, or who didn't follow the news a couple of summers ago, Winsted is a small mill town in Litchfield county of about 10-12000 people, mostly blue-collar.  Last night was the second town meeting to try and pass a budget for fiscal year 2008-2009.  The original budget proposed by the board of selectmen was defeated in referendum last month, which meant that the budget would be adjusted by the board, then brought before the town at a town meeting again, where residents could propose cuts, which could be voted upon by those residents in attendance.  Unfortunately, by the town charter, additions cannot be made at a town meeting, only cuts.  Additions have to be made by the board of selectmen at their meeting.