http://www.bethechangeinc.org/…

ServiceNation Summit Co-chairs:

• Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
  
• Caroline Kennedy, Vice-Chair, New York City Fund For Public Schools
  
• Bill Novelli, CEO, AARP
  
• Alma Powell, Chair, America’s Promise Alliance
  
• Rick Stengel, Managing Editor, TIME Magazine

ServiceNation Leadership Council:

• Andi Bernstein
• Tom A. Bernstein, President and Co-founder, Chelsea Piers
• Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, New York, NY; Chairman, National September 11 Memorial and Museum
• Cory Booker, Mayor, Newark, NJ
• Richard H. Brodhead, President, Duke University
• Neil Bush, CEO, Global XS
• Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone
• Mortimer Caplin, Former Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service
• Vice Admiral Richard Carmona, Former U.S. Surgeon General
• Jean Case, CEO, The Case Foundation
• Richard Celeste, President, Colorado College
• Ray Chambers, Amelior Foundation
• Richard Cizik, Vice President, National Association of Evangelicals
• Glenn Close, Actress
• William Cohen, Former Secretary of Defense; Former U.S. Senator
• Janet Langhart Cohen, Author; Founder, Citizen Patriot Organization
• Scott Cowen, President, Tulane University
• Tom Daschle, Former U.S. Senator
• John J. DeGioia, President, Georgetown University
• Manny Diaz, Mayor, Miami, FL
• John Dilulio, Former Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; Author, The Godly Republic
• Melinda Doolittle, Recording Artist
• Paul Fireman, Founder, Reebok
• Al From, Founder and CEO, Democratic Leadership Council
• Susan Fuhrman, President, Teachers College, Columbia University
• Mark Gearan, President, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• David Gergen, Professor of Public Service and Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard University
• Michael Gerson, Columnist, The Washington Post
• Stephen Goldsmith, Former Mayor, Indianapolis, IN
• Jennifer Granholm, Governor, Michigan
• Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Theologian; Author, The Jewish Way; Founding President, Jewish Life Network
• Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania
• Lee Hamilton, Former Congressman; Former Co-chair, 9/11 Commission and Iraq Study Group
• Jenny Chin Hansen, President, AARP
• Gary Hart, Former U.S. Senator
• Admiral James R. Hogg, USN (Ret), Director, Strategic Studies Group, Naval War College
• James J. Jensen
• Martin Luther King, III, Chairman, Realizing the Dream
• Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Public Schools
• Sherry Lansing, Founder, The Sherry Lansing Foundation
• Jim Leach, Former Congressman; John L. Weinberg Professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow   Wilson School, Princeton University
• Anthony Marx, President, Amherst College
• Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, Chairman, American Red Cross
• Sam Nunn, Former U.S. Senator
• Michael Nutter, Mayor, Philadelphia, PA
• Martin O’Malley, Governor, Maryland
• Lt. General Dave R. Palmer, USA (Ret), Former Superintendent, U.S. Military Academy at West Point; Author
• David Paterson, Governor, New York
• Kal Penn, Actor
• Gregg Petersmeyer, Former Assistant to the President; Director, Office of National Service under George H.W. Bush
• Peter G. Peterson, Founder and Chairman, Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Co-founder, Blackstone Group Management
• Rob Portman, Former Congressman; Former Director, Office of Management and Budget
• Samantha Power, Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard University; Author
• Marc Racicot, Former Governor, Montana
• Susan Rice, Foreign Policy Advisor, Obama for America
• Bill Richardson, Governor, New Mexico
• David Shaw, Managing Partner, Black Point Group
• Rodney Slater, Former Secretary of Transportation; Chair, United Way of America
• Laurie M. Tisch, President, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
• Paul Vallas, Superintendent, New Orleans Recovery School District
• David Walker, President and CEO, Peter G. Peterson Foundation
• Silda Wall, Founder, Children For Children
• Rick Warren, Senior Pastor, Saddleback Church; Author, A Purpose Driven Life
• Harris Wofford, Former U.S. Senator; Former CEO, Corporation for National & Community Service

Is it surprising that a large portion of those in support are directly or indirectly government bureaucrats?

From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON - A new nationwide campaign is warning Americans that unless the federal government puts its financial house in order, the country could be bankrupt in a generation.

The project, organized by Peter G. Peterson, an investment banker who served as commerce secretary in the Nixon administration, and David M. Walker, the former comptroller general of the United States, aims to build grass-roots support for wholesale changes to the federal budget - though the overhaul would require middle- and upper-income Americans to give up some cherished government benefits.

Peterson and Walker said yesterday that the campaign, sponsored by the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation in New York, will kick off next week with a documentary called “I.O.U.S.A,” the first salvo in an aggressive, multimillion dollar effort that will include television advertisements and Internet outreach.

Peterson, the foundation president, and Walker, the chief executive, said the widening gap between government revenues and spending will eventually destroy the confidence in the American economy that has led international lenders to continue to finance the national debt.

“We are going to get a crisis like most Americans have never seen,” Walker said during a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.

The national debt is now more than $9 trillion.

See the link for the rest of the article. Peterson’s group also puts out a color brochure titled, The State of the Union’s Finances.

Press release from said website:

DALLAS, TEXAS - JUNE 16, 2008 /PRNewswire/—Ross Perot, business leader and former presidential candidate, announced today the launch of “PerotCharts.com,” a public information website that contains objective, factual information about the current economic crisis in America. The site is being launched as an alert and appeal for American citizens to inform themselves about federal government spending. Perot said, “The U.S. national debt reached $9.4 TRILLION on April 30, and it is increasing by more than $1 billion every day. We are leaving our children and grandchildren with debt they cannot possibly pay.”

The rest on the other side of the jump…

Read More…

http://www.humanevents.com/…

If you forgot to get a Christmas present for Charlie Rangel, don’t worry. The congressman picked one out for himself, and he’s sending you the bill: $2 million for a shiny new Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.

The New York Democrat’s Monument to Me was one of about 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill Congress approved before going on vacation. Most represented a more subtle form of self-aggrandizement, aimed at maintaining power and prestige by currying favor with voters.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the total cost of the 11,000 or so earmarks in the omnibus bill and an earlier defense bill is about $14 billion, which is not much in the context of a $2.8 trillion federal budget. But the same tendency that explains the persistence of earmarks — the habit of staying popular by pretending your constituents can get something for nothing — also explains the failure to address the federal government’s increasingly dire fiscal predicament.

The root of that predicament is not earmarks, which represent less than 1 percent of federal spending. Nor is it the war in Iraq, which at $100 billion or so a year accounts for less than 4 percent.

So-called entitlement programs are the reason “America faces escalating deficit levels and debt burdens that could swamp our ship of state,” as Comptroller General David Walker put it in a recent speech. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 40 percent of federal spending and are expected to consume 51 percent in a decade.

I wasn’t going to post this story originally. While I believe his $100 billion Iraq figure is disingenuous given that there is also other military discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Totaling just shy of $700 billion for 2007. Regardless he makes very important points but they are fairly well known. The reason I had to post this is because of one of the comments. Comment #2 from Charles in Ohio:

We need to raise taxes, bust up corporations, mandate living wages for workers, and cap salaries for executives. We need a one child policy to prevent overpopulation, send more money to public schools, and oversee a total dismantling of the military.

What Democrat will do that? Any?

It’s time this country realized that the way to pay for all these illegal wars by an unelected president is to tax at 100% levels any rich person, that is, anyone making over $100,000 per year. Then we end the wars, tax corporations at historically high levels to erase the deficit, nationalize health care and ban all private medical practice forever.

The government is the solution and must provide basic needs to all Americans. That is FAIR! Watching retired generals and former defense contractors show up in welfare lines is FAIR because of all they stole from the poor.

Which Democrat will do that? Any?

Will any Democrat dare do what is FAIR and start taxing by race and gender? Blacks, Latinos, women, and gays should be given tax breaks and rich white men’s taxes should be raised to pay for those breaks and that is FAIR!

Will any Democrat do this?

At first I thought it was your average egalitarian socialist but Charles goes a whole lot further. I wish he would have told us who will do what he proposes.