AIG (American International Group, Inc.) is a major insurance corporation based at the American International Building in New York City. AIG made huge, bad bets on the housing market that have so far cost taxpayers $170 billion in bailout money. But this company gave it’s employees $450 million in bonuses! This is outrageous! Any company that is so bad off that it needs bailout money should not be allowed to give out bonus money to anyone! They helped to destroyed our economy, and now their executives are being rewarded with bonuses?! WTF!
moveon.org
MoveOn.org
Now that Barack Obama has been elected, The political action group MoveOn.org asked it’s 5 million members what the organizations next priority should be for 2009. Members were asked to pick their top three most important issues.
My top 3 were:
1. Universal health care
2. Build a green economy, stop climate change
3. Improve public schools
It should come as no surprise to those who know me that Universal Health Care would be at the top of my list. What was really surprising to me is that it is also on the top of the list for the majority of MoveOn members! Universal Health Care even came before economic recovery! But then if you really think about it, Universal Health Care will actually help the economy, probably more than billion dollar bale outs. If the Big 3 automakers didn’t have to provide health care for it’s employees, that alone would put them in the black. This would also be very helpful to struggling small businesses. More Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills than for any other reason.
Of course there are many more reasons that Universal Health Care is the right thing to do, but I’ll save those for another post. I was just pleasantly surprised that this issue ended up on the very top of the MoveOn.org list of priorities. Interesting.
Below are the top 10 goals in the order of importance to MoveOn members:
1. Universal health care 64.9%
2. Economic recovery and job creation 62.1%
3. Build a green economy, stop climate change 49.6%
4. End the war in Iraq 48.3%
5. Improve public schools 21.6%
6. Restore civil liberties 16.8%
7. Hold the Bush Administration accountable 15.2%
8. Gay rights/LGBT equality 8.6%
9. Increase access to higher education 7.6%
10. Reform campaigns and elections 5.7%