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 Nan Madden, Director of the Minnesota Budget Project, writes that 'what hasn't changed since January are the critical needs for this legislative session:
- The need for a more fair tax system. It’s still true that in Minnesota, as income grows, the share of income paid in taxes falls.
- The need to end the cycle of budget deficits. Minnesota still faces significant gaps between public needs and the resources it takes to meet them, despite improvements in the recent February forecast. The state faces a $627 million deficit in the FY 2014-15 biennium. If we account for inflation, we face a $1.5 billion shortfall in FY 2014-15 and a $1.5 billion shortfall in the next biennium.
- The need to invest in stronger, healthier and more educated communities."
At this halfway point in the session, Madden reviews Governor Dayton's budget. Read her summary of the current budget along with the details on what has changed since the beginning of the session.
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 Ed Schultz commented that the election results indicate the American people think the wealthy should pay more. They did not vote to cut into the middle class and the elderly who didn't cause the deficit problems. "I don't buy it." In his interview of Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Sanders said, “I am prepared to work with other progressives to do everything that we can to make sure that the budget is not balanced on a collapsing middle class and on 46 million people who are living in poverty and on many elderly people who are barely keeping their heads above water economically.” Watch the interview and sign Bernie Sanders petition.
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Romney won't tell voters that the number of small businesses in Massachusetts shrank under his watch as governor of Massachusetts—or that his state dropped to 47th out of 50 in job creation under his watch. And he certainly won't mention that he's proposing to raise taxes on middle-class families to pay for huge tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
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 Moyers: Why 'We the People' Must Triumph over Corporate Power - ". . . if the generations before us had given up, slaves would be waiting on our tables and picking our crops, women would be turned back at the voting booths, and it would be a crime for workers to organize. Like our forebears, we will not fix the broken promise of America — the promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all our citizens, not just the powerful and privileged — if we throw in the proverbial towel. Surrendering to plutocracy is not an option. Confronting a moment in our history that is much like the one Lincoln faced — when “we can nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope on earth” — we must fight back against the forces that are pouring dirty money into the political system, turning it into a sewer." Read Bill Moyers' article:
 Makana Sings Occupy Protest Song at APEC Summit - The White House invited Hawaiian singer, song writer, and guitarist Makana to play instrumental music at the dinner President Obama hosted at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Honolulu, Hawaii. Makana opened his jacket to reveal a tee shirt that said "Occupy with Aloha" and sang the protest song "We are the Many" that he created for the Occupy Movement. At first he started softly and found he felt afraid to sing the song."I didn't like the idea of being afraid to sing a song that I created. I've never in my life been afraid to sing anything. If that's what' we've come to in the world where we're afraid to say certain things in the company of certain people, I think that's a dangerous place to be. And so for me to move out of that space, I had to sing the song. And that's what I did."
Listen to a brief interview and Makana singing the Occupy Protest Song "We are the Many."
Occupy Our Homes was a national day of action designed to underscore the connection between Wall Street and Main Street by focusing on the central role banks played in the housing crisis. On December 6 over 20 cities hosted protests against foreclosure. The day was the result of weeks of careful planning and alliance building.
 "In Chicago, a homeless woman and her baby moved into a foreclosed home with the blessing of the previous owner and the help of more than forty supporters; in Atlanta, protesters made an appearance at foreclosure auctions in three counties; in Denver, activists collected garbage from abandoned properties and delivered it to the mayor; in Oakland, a mother of three reclaimed the townhouse she lost after becoming unemployed while another group held a barbeque at a property owned by Fannie Mae."
Read about the reoccupation of a foreclosed property in a Brooklyn neighborhood in New York:
Occupy Wall Street on your Street by Astra Taylor, The Nation, December 7, 2011
Occupy Minneapolis and Neighborhood Organizing for Change launched an extended sit in to protest the eviction of a long time Minneapolis home owner. See the article and 3 minute video by the Uptake.
Across the country on December 4, 2011, Occupy Wall Street farmers celebrated community power to regain control over food, the most basic element for human well-being.
In New York, Occupy Wall Street Farmers addressed an excited crowd in La Plaza Cultural Community Gardens about the growing problems in our industrial food system and solutions based on organic, sustainable and community based food production. This was followed by a 3-mile march from the East Village to Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A farmer stated, "There was a real sense of community down there. These people are absolutely serious. . . The problems they describe are absolutely real."
He explained that family farmers whose crops are contaminated by pollen that comes from Monsanto's side of the fence are viewed as holding Monsanto technology on which they didn't pay royalty. Monsanto then subjects them to patent infringement litigation. They can lose their farms through bankruptcy trying to clear their name.
View the 4 minute video
 What Would Gandhi Do? - "Gandhi would underscore that social transformation requires significant responsibility on the part of each of us. The world is not a static system or an unalterable one. Society exists in a certain way when we enter it, but it is our actions or our inaction that maintain the status quo, make things worse, or transform them for the better. Gandhi explained this most pointedly when he declared that the British Empire existed because Indians had let it exist. He would say the same thing about the drastic income inequality in America today: it is here because Americans collectively allow it to be here." Read the New York Times article by Ian Desai.
Naomi Klein, Alan Grayson, Amy Goodman, and George Lakoff on the Wall Street Occupation
Economic Facts Behind the Wall Street Occupation
The Best Explanation of What's Really Going on with the Deficit
Big Mike breaks the big deficit down:
Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 November 2011 00:47
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