Give The People What They Want! Taxes That Pay for Jobs, Education, Healthcare and Science | Alternet

Give The People What They Want! Taxes That Pay for Jobs, Education, Healthcare and Science | Alternet
"Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus -- the kicker -- Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?

Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions -- or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes."

In Defense of Science: How the Fiscal Cliff Could Cripple Research Enterprise - The Atlantic

In Defense of Science: How the Fiscal Cliff Could Cripple Research Enterprise - The Atlantic
"Research is the only way we can improve upon diagnosis and treatments that will allow people to long, healthy, and productive lives. Solutions here can ultimately bring down health care costs -- the far bigger driver of our national indebtedness. It is the NIH that funds research on diseases such as diabetes, neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, liver, kidney, immune-mediated diseases, you name it. And these are just the more common ailments. There are so many others less well known, often devastating, frequently genetic, that as a group cause enormous havoc to human health.

The only hope for patients and their caregivers is through research."