The good news is that the Chinese & Indians are racing ahead to produce more graduates and therefore, leaders in all fields while Collins & Co. push education funding further back, at home … /s

If the administration would just let the bottom fall out of the real estate market, the price of everything would go down. Then the states wouldn’t have to pay government workers as much and could stretch their budgets further.

Okay, so I’ll click through to Think Progress later, but first I took about 5 minutes out on ‘the google’ to see how that figure of $100 billion stacked up relative to other items in the news today.

So I hope that my efforts to provide a little more ‘context’ to Susan Collins’ penny-pinching foolishness are a helpful contribution to this thread topic:

ITEM #1: Because the Senate has yet to act on health care reform, the amount that Collins and her pals demanded be cut from the stimulus represents only 1/8th of what Americans handed over to healthCos (who don’t have to abide by antitrust regulations) in 2009 alone, a huge chunk of which went to only 5 companies:

Last year the five largest health insurance companies scored record profits of $12.2 billion – an increase of $4.4 billion (56%) over 2008 figures. The numbers, compiled by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a coalition of reform groups, come from the financial reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

HCAN examined the profits of WellPoint, United Health Group, Cigna, Aetna and Humana. According to HCAN, the five insurance giants increased their profits while providing coverage to 2.7 million fewer people than the year before. HCAN also found that three of the five companies slashed the amount of each premium dollar they spent on medical care for their customers, diverting more to salaries, administrative expenses and profits.

The five biggest insurance companies captured $232 billion of the roughly $809 billion Americans spent for private health insurance in 2009. As they’ve gobbled up other companies through mergers and acquisitions, the Big Five’s share of the pie has steadily increased. Lack of competition has led to these profits as well as an epidemic of deceptive and fraudulent conduct. Meanwhile more and more Americans are uninsured and struggle to cope with rapidly escalating costs. While the 10 largest health insurers saw their profits balloon from $2.4 billion in 2000 to $13 billion in 2000, more than 47 million Americans are now uninsured, and premiums have risen over 120 percent in the past decade for those who do have coverage.

From a New Jersey newspaper blog

ITEM #2: Meanwhile, senators like Collins have refused to produce viable energy alternatives, so we get to read analyses of oil industry trends like this, reminding us all that Shell Oil Company made $31 billion in 2008 alone:

Feb 4th 2010 | From The Economist online

ON THE face of it the world’s big and publicly quoted oil companies should be celebrating some pleasing results this week. Royal Dutch Shell unveiled its results on Thursday February 4th, reporting that it had made $9.8 billion in 2009. Two days earlier BP boasted profits of $14 billion for the same year. Yet these billions are a disappointment compared with the bonanza of previous years (Shell, for example, raked in $31.4 billion in 2008 alone) when soaring oil prices pulled profits ever higher.

In the long term, however, the firms’ success depends on sustaining reserves. The big western oil companies are trying to expand through acquisitions and investment, but the opportunities do so are becoming scarcer. The firms are spending where they can. Exxon Mobil, the biggest listed oil company, says that exploration and capital spending hit $27.1 billion in 2009, 4% higher than in 2008. The company expects to spend $25 billion to $30 billion annually to the same end over the next five years. BP intends to spend some $20 billion this year on investment in new projects and drilling, roughly the same level as last year.

…By far the biggest bet laid, however, has been on natural gas. Around 40% of Shell’s daily production is now in the form of gas. Total and BP are not far behind. Gas is increasingly important for power generation and heating and the global market is expected to grow by half by 2030.

[Note: Given the wacko accounting rules current today, this is the **reported** profit; who knows what they actually made?]

So I guess that if you blind yourself to the offshore corporations, the tax evaders, the profit you’re too weeny to touch for The Common Good — let alone the future of America’s children — then I suppose that being a hypocrite might be the least of your problems.

IMVHO, it shows atrociously bad judgement for these Congresscritters to be fighting over bones and scraps from the table while they allow corporations to basically steal America blind.

Man, do we ever need some brighter minds in D.C.!

Michigan Republicans are obedient little fascists doing the bidding of their anti-American party that is opposed to the common good in favor of individual greed.

Susan Collins oozes supercilious sanctimony from every pore and orifice of her compassionless walking corpse. What remains of her conscience is screaming as it pulls and claws at her skin, resulting in that pinched and puckered visage that we see in every photo of her. I can barely summon the fortitude to look upon her image.

Thanks, Bmaz. Reporting on the news is one thing, but some progressives have been upset that they have not come out against the deal due to Comcast’s history with respect to Net Neutrality, monopoly practices, etc. However, in addition to what you noted (word from the bosses) I’d think that if any of them tried to spike the deal they might not only run afoul of SEC regs and/or laws but might open themselves up to lawsuits from disgruntled GE and/or Comcast stockholders. (The argument being that those with a vested interest in the status quo helped squelch a deal that would have benefited other stockholders. But hey, I’m not a lawyer.)