Criminals should not run free.

As the conference committee starts its work to adopt a comprehensive budget package, we would like to voice our enthusiastic support of the following items proposed by legislature: Increase in Reimbursement Rates: Increases in funding helps provide resources and training for staff in early education programs to ensure the highest quality education and school readiness to children and families. • Support the Assembly’s recommendation to increase the Standard Reimbursement Rate by 20%. • Support the Assembly’s recommendation to increase the Regional Market Rate to 85th percentile of the 2014 survey with a 10% deficit factor. • Support the Assembly’s recommendation to increase the adjustment factor for Infants and Toddlers. • Support the Assembly’s recommendation to adjust the Full Day Plus rate to 9 hours instead of 10.5 hours. Increase in Access: During the recession, many child care spaces at publicly funded programs were lost. A restoration of these spaces is needed to provide access for all families needing early education programs. There is an unmet need and insufficient slots to serve all eligible children on waiting lists. • Support the Assembly recommendation to increase the State Median Income (SMI) to 100% of the current SMI. • Support the Assembly’s recommendation to provide 10,500 full-day preschool slot • Support the Senate’s recommendation to provide 13,500 Alternative Payment slots. Infrastructure Support: Core Client and Support Services are those delivered by APP staff to the families that they serve. • Support the Assembly’s proposal to restore the Alternative Payment administration and core support rate to 20%. We thank you for your leadership and support of early education programs.

When your child is too sick to go to school, you often have no choice but to stay home with them. It’s not a choice at all -- it’s your obligation as a parent. Yet, for too many of Oregon’s working families living paycheck-to-paycheck, a sudden illness or accident could spell financial disaster. It means lost wages, or even a lost job. It could mean coming up short on your rent payment, and even eviction. Oregon workers shouldn’t have to choose between paying the bills and staying home when they or their child gets sick. Sign the petition: tell the Legislature to make paid sick time a reality for all Oregonians!

Apparel giant PVH has decided to cut and run from unionized factories in Bangladesh, resulting in potential forced layoffs of nearly 1,300 workers. PVH’s actions will have negative consequences not just for the workers of the Global Trousers factory, but for thousands of workers throughout Bangladesh.

I have seen all of the forests in the state of Indiana in perpetual decline due to logging and believe it is affecting the environment of today as well as for future generations.

This will affect citizens of Dublin in many ways, such as creating water shortage and traffic jams. Let's stop this waterpark!

The economy has recovered from the recession and continues to grow. But as so many of us know, that growth isn’t reaching the middle class. It’s being gobbled up by Wall Street and company executives. Luckily, Massachusetts can do something about it. Despite record profits, corporations are giving less and less to help the middle class. A recent report showed that regular employees see the smallest percentage of corporate profit at any point since 1950 -- even while productivity has kept rising. [1] In Massachusetts, the average employee gets $51,082 per year, while the average CEO receives $4.5 million. Looking at just the S&P 500 companies, that jumps to $13M for an average CEO, 255 times the average worker. [2] If a company is doing well, there is no reason their executives shouldn't earn more, but when that doesn't reach the rest of the employees, it bogs down the whole economy with unsustainable inequality. There is a pending bill in the Massachusetts Senate that would push corporations to curb this trend. It's a simple idea: If a company pays their executives more than 100 times what the median salary is for that company, they would pay another 2% in taxes on their profits. This gives companies an incentive to raise the salaries of average employees. Massachusetts does best when everyone gets a fair shot and gets a fair share. Everyone should get a chance to work their way to a living wage. 1. Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute, "In 2013, Workers’ Share of Income in the Corporate Sector Fell to its Lowest Point since 1950." http://www.epi.org/publication/2013-workers-share-income-corporate-sector/ 2. CEO Pay by State, AFL-CIO. http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/Paywatch-2014/CEO-Pay-by-State

For the last 5 years I have volunteered in animal rescue daily and believe no animal should be left out in the cold. If you have a pet it becomes part of your family and you should treat it like you would another family member.

As an educated woman, I can no longer stand the mockery Fox "News" is making of the rest of our news outlets. Fox "News" is lowering the standards for the rest of our media and I'm not having it!

Nestle has a water bottling facility in Madison County. They started pulling water from Blue Springs a number of years ago completely free. They don't pay any type of fee or tax for the water they take. In other words, they are stealing water from Florida. They have even fought to reduce or eliminate the property taxes they pay to our county. It's time we end this and ask Nestle to pay their fair share.

Years ago I worked for Jerry Brown for President, and watched the liberal media PRE-nominate Bill Clinton as the Democratic nominee. Brown was against big money in politics and refused to take over $100 donations, and Brown was pro-renewable energy in a big way. Sure would have been nice if Americans would have had a real primary debate in the media, and not have their Democratic candidates pre-selected by the media. Bernie Sanders needs equal time on MSNBC.

In September, 2014, federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming were reinstated after a federal judge invalidated the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s (FWS) delisting of wolves in that state. In December, 2014, federal protections were also reinstated for wolves in the western Great Lakes region—including Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—after another federal judge invalidated FWS’s delisting of wolves in that area. Wildlife management decisions should be based on the best available science, not politics. If Congress delists wolves from the Endangered Species Act, it would completely undermine one of our nation’s bedrock environmental laws—a law that Americans rely on as a safety net for our nation’s wildlife, plants, birds, insects, and fish. We have just begun to recover wolves in parts of the United States. This recovery effort has had some great successes, as we now have populations in the northern Rockies and the western Great Lakes region. But it is too soon to take wolves off the endangered species list, as multiple courts have confirmed. There is suitable habitat in numerous states where wolves have not yet reestablished populations. Continued federal protections are essential to allow existing populations to stabilize and expand to other suitable habitat. This is not just about the wolf – there are broader implications for the Endangered Species Act, as well. The Act is one of our most effective and important environmental laws, supported by nearly 85 percent of Americans. Unfortunately, the 2011 appropriations rider that delisted wolves in Idaho, Montana, and in parts of Washington, Oregon, and Utah, set a terrible precedent and rendered the Endangered Species Act vulnerable to other congressional attacks. Since the 2011 wolf rider, we’ve seen an uptick in bills and riders that undermine or block protections under the Act for particular species, along with other types of proposals to weaken the Act. We must not allow further “death by a thousand cuts” erosion of this bedrock environmental law.