Millionaires make up more than half of Congress

What's more, members of Congress got 16 percent richer from 2008 to 2009.  Meanwhile, the rest of us got poorer. U.S. median household income dropped 3 percent to $50,221 during the same period.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported today that 261 members of Congress are millionaires, with eight worth more than $100 million and 55 worth more than $10 million.

How did they manage to get richer during the Great Recession? Reports CNBC,

a significant number of members owned shares of major players in the health-care and financial-services sectors, which were the subject of major reform legislation during the period.

Check out this slide show on the richest members of Congress.

Wonder why insurance premiums are going up?

Maybe it's because insurance companies secretly gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86 million to fight health care reform last year.

Bloomberg reported today that,

The spending reflects the insurers’ attempts to influence the bill after Democrats in Congress and the White House put more focus on regulation of the insurance industry.

The ginormous contribution to the Chamber was revealed in tax returns filed recently.

GOP to jobless: Drop dead

That's the title of a Washington Post column today by Steven Pearlstein. He says congressional Republicans are trying to emasculate the government's role in the economy. For example, two Republican leaders want to take away the Federal Reserve's responsibility for creating jobs. Pearlstein writes,

For too many Republicans, the aim is to ... trash the institutions of government.

Pearlstein doesn't even mention that Congress probably won't extend unemployment benefits. David Dayen at firedoglake reports that it's going to be very, very difficult for the Senate to vote on an extension by the deadline -- which is Friday. Two million people will lose their benefits.

Oh, and 50 million Americans live in hunger, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It's going to be a long, cold winter for a lot of Americans.

Today's Teamster News 11.17.10

Investing in Driver Health Can Yield Dividends  Truckinginfo.com   ...longhours, hard labor, and on-the-road living make it hard for drivers to take care of their health...
CN workers ratify contracts  Globe and Mail  ...The agreements, which are retroactive to July 23, will provide members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference with wage increases and improvements in benefits....
NLRB Invites Briefs on Nonemployee Access And Employer Discrimination Against Unions  BNA Daily Labor Report   ...(The NLRA asked for briefs on the) question of whether an employer violates the NLRA by refusing to grant nonemployee union representatives access to its premises while permitting other individuals, groups, or organizations to use the employer's premises for their activities.
China's 'State Capitalism' Sparks a Global Backlash  Wall Street Journal   Terrific primer on China's economy...
One Way to Trim Deficit: Cultivate Growth  New York Times  ...If the economy grew one half of a percentage point faster than forecast each year over the next two decades ... the country would have to do roughly 40 to 50 percent less deficit-cutting than it now appears...
Ireland: A Textbook Example of the Dangers of Balanced Budgets and Fiscal Responsibility  Beat the Press

There's still time to tell Congress to extend unemployment benefits

Congress has just a few days to extend unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans. Most Americans want Congress to continue to help unemployed people, and economists believe it will help the economy.

Here's what you can do:
Call your senator today.
Write your senator.
Sign the petition.

Still more hypocrisy from rich people who oppose government spending

This is rich. The Huffington Post reports that the super-wealthy new owners of the Chicago Cubs are launching campaigns against government spending -- at the same time they're asking Illinois taxpayers to pay $300 million to renovate Wrigley Field!

Here's what happened: The Ricketts family recently bought the Chicago Cubs from The Tribune Co. (the travesty of Sam Zell's takeover of Tribune is a whole nother story). The family's daddy, Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, started an organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks to fight wasteful government spending and earmarks. He also has a political group called the Ending Spending Fund.

Joe Ricketts has actually said

“I think it’s a crime for our elected officials to borrow money today, to spend money today and push the repayment of that loan out into the future on people who are not even born yet.”

Joe's son Tom is chairman of the Cubs. He wants Illinois taxpayers to assume the risk for hundreds of millions of dollars in construction costs for Wrigley Field, which his family owns along with the team.

Renovating Wrigley Field is a worthy goal, not least because it would create much-needed jobs. But in exchange for taxpayer support, the Ricketts family should agree to shut the F* up about wasteful government spending.

Freshman Congressman demands to know where's his health care?

A Maryland doctor named Andy Harris ran for Congress and won on a platform of repealing health care reform.

Here's the kicker: Politico reports that at an orientation for freshmen representatives on Monday, Harris demanded to know why his government-subsidized health care took a month to kick in. Writes Politico, Harris

reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.
“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange....“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide.

The irony, of course, is that what Harris wanted was a public option, which he had strongly opposed -- at least on the campaign trail. As Talking Points Memo points out,

Harris told voters, "the answer to the ever-rising cost of insurance is not the expansion of government-run or government-mandated insurance but, instead, common-sense market based solutions that ensure decisions are made by patients and their doctors."