The 2013-2014 NYS Budget ignores the need for public school funding. Governor Cuomo has made school aid "not guaranteed," as it comes with prerequisite strings attached. Likewise, the tax relief and initiatives for the middle class is not appropriately addressed to all middle class citizens.

What Representative Clark and Senator Eaton propose is simple: modestly increase the tax on alcohol and devote the funds to sober schools, supportive housing, DUI courts, treatment, domestic violence programs, and similar needed services and programs. Help Olmsted and other Counties get DUi & Drug Court. The current cost of alcohol to our state is 5.06 billion annually. House Bill 885/ Senate Bill 902 would increase taxes by 3.5 cents for a can of beer, 3.8 cents for glass of wine, and 10 cents for a shot of liquor.

I do not understand why some of our elected officials are allowed to get away with calling social security and medicare as entitlement programs. I have contributed to the for 50 years They are not entitlements What are entitlement programs: 1) congresspeople and senators get pensions for life even if they only serve one term. Lets end this now 2) Congresspeople and senators have great health insurance paid by the US government This is an entitlement program Let them pay like most other people

Currently, S.55 is stuck in the State Senate Appropriations Committee. This bill would set up a task force to study state government banking and financial activities and determine if the present way of performing them is the best that can be done or if there are better ways of conducting these activities in a manner that will better benefit the state and its citizens. Many state government agencies currently do business with several financial institutions that engage in questionable activities. One of the possible outcomes of the study by the task force as currently configured in this bill is determining how much risk our public money is placed under by continuing to do business with these systemically important (AKA Too Big Too Fail) financial institutions. One example of possible risk is Citigroup’s efforts to unload its investments in shipping companies which are losing money. Citigroup is the lead administrator of the state municipal bonding program. There is also some evidence that there are efforts at the federal level to turn deposits at these big institutions into property of the banks which could be used to bail them out in the event of failure of any of these banks resulting in the possible loss of these deposits to the depositors. It is very important that the Senate Appropriations Committee acts promptly to release S.55 so that this very important study can be undertaken. Signatures to this petition will be sent directly to members of the Appropriations Committee. Please sign this petition as soon as you can and thank you for your efforts. State/Public Bank Committee Jim Hogue, Chair http://vtpublicbank.com

Stop selling out to Com Ed

U.S. Navy Veteran Abused at United States Veterans Hospital, Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks 1100 North College Avenue Fayetteville, AR 72703 On June 15, 2011. TELEPHONE 479-443-4301 http://www.fayettevillear.va.gov/Mark A. Elderle M.D. and John R. Henley M.D. Congressman Steve Womack http://womack.house.gov/ PHONE 202-225-4301, Senator Mark Pryor http://www.pryor.senate.gov/public/ PHONE 202-224-2353, Senator John Boozman http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/ each of Arkansas, We spent five hours in which my husband lay in pain and his own URINE, FECES, and STENCH. My husband was incapacitated DUE TO THE STROKE he was having and not at all mad or upset. He was barely conscious ... We then drove to Fort Smith AR (because of MY decision, not his) to Sparks Regional Medical Center http://www.sparkshealth.com/locations/sparks-regional-medical-center where my husband was hospitalized, and treated with human dignity, Critical time lost (wasted) at the VA hospital How many U.S. Veterans are abused and the abuse is never reported. Not one U.S. Veteran deserves humiliation and malpractice at any United States Government facility. Websites of which we have contacted and received NO answers towards the investigation we ask for: http://womack.house.gov/ http://www.pryor.senate.gov/public/ http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ http://www.speaker.gov/ http://www.democraticleader.gov/ http://www.fayettevillear.va.gov/ http://www.va.gov/org/

U.S. consumers are now competing with consumers in China & South America for gasoline. Oil companies are exporting oil out of our country, to these areas and are driving our prices up. We currently have enough natural gas in the U.S. to meet our energy needs for the next 100 years...but NOT if the oil companies are allowed to export it...which they plan to do. This is our gas and our oil. It should not be put on the world market...it should be kept in this country. Companies owned by persons outside of the U.S. (like British Petroleum...BP) should not be allowed to come here, and deplete our oil & natural gas stores by selling them overseas. A nationalized, U.S. Goverment-owned Oil & Natural Gas Exploration/refining/distribution company could stop this. Consumers could buy from the goverment stations, and profits would be returned to them in the form of putting them back into goverment budgets. In essence, you would be buying from your own company. Please sign if you think this is a good idea. U.S. oil & natural gas should stay in the U.S.! The President could invoke an Executive Order to the Energy Dept. by-passing Congress to establish this...because oil company lobbyists would pressure Congress not to pass such a law, so we cannot depend on Congress.

After 41 years, a group of protestors want the Memorial removed from a Coos Bay City park. When this memorial was dedicated, Vietnam Veterans Memorials were very few. The war was still going on. Protestors from around America were trashing Vietnam Veterans as baby-killers and village-burners. It is part of history. With a cross on it or not, it represents ALL Vietnam Veterans from across America. City Leaders will meat this week after Easter to decide on removing the cross memorial. Please have your say, Please sign and share. Save this Memorial for all the Heroes it represents.

Congress has the responsibility to be a good steward of the US Postal Service as outlined in the Constitution of the United States. This is outlined in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7. Our founding fathers wrote this in our constitution before the right to build roads, establish armies, navies and the right to declare war. The postal service has already eliminated 193,000 jobs since 2006 and continues to downsize. Currently the postal service employs 109,000 US military veterans. This is over 20% of the postal service career workforce. In this time of great economic recession in America it does not make sense to downsize the postal service as it is profitable the way it is. It simply needs to end the prefunding of retiree healthcare benefits at current levels. Not only are the postal service's retiree healthcare benefits overfunded by billions of dollars, the postal service's retiree annuity contributions to the CSRS and FERS are overfunded by billions of dollars as well. We believe creative accounting practices and bad laws have created this problem. So we ask the President and Congress to make the postal service cease and desist from closing anymore facilities and from cutting service at the post office until Congress passes a post office reform bill.

I'm tired of the filibuster, the house doesn't want to move forward and they said, they would not filibuster so much and Harry Reid fell for it. time to make 51 votes a majority again.

Amendments to Bill H 3435, known as the Healthy Youth Amendment, covers changes to create a more comprehensive health education approach for children at all age levels within the SC public school system. In order to do this teachers and administrators need to be trained on medically accurate information, and have access to evidence-based curricula which would be taught in a consistent manner among all schools in the area. If Bill 3435 is passed, schools will also be held accountable to comply with the law.

President Obama signed a spending bill (HR 933) to avoid a government shutdown this week. However, in addition to paying the government's bills for another six months, HR 933 also included a Farmer Assurance Provision ("Monsanto Protection Act") that limits our legal rights while granting big agribusiness like Monsanto sweeping new protections for their little-studied GMO crops. Most notably, the quietly inserted provision strips federal courts of their authority to issue injunctions halting the production of GMO crops, including those known to pose real consumer health risks. And it all happened without a single hearing before the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees. We should not have to choose between a government shutdown and our right to food safety. SOURCES: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr933/text http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-congress-silently-slips-830/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/how_the_monsanto_protection_act_snuck_into_law/ http://www.ibtimes.com/monsanto-protection-act-roll-call-how-did-your-congressperson-vote-hr-933-1158789 http://www.ibtimes.com/monsanto-protection-act-5-terrifying-things-know-about-hr-933-provision-1156079