Total receipts for highways in 2010:
- State government: $109 billion
- Local government: $53 billion
- Federal government: $59 billion
- U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
N.H. business owner, star of Romney's "You didn't Build That" ad received $1 million in government loans
Jack Gilchrist, a businessman who stars in an ad (video below) for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, claims in the ad: “My father’s hands didn’t build this company? My hands didn’t build this company? My son’s hands aren’t building this company?”
However, what Gilchrist failed to mention is that he built his business, Gilchrist Metal, through government-sponsored loans, putting a dent in the attack on President Obama.
The New Hampshire Union Leader recently reported Gilchrist took over $1 million in government loans since the 1980s, including $800,000 in tax-exempt bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority to build a new manufacturing plant and buy equipment.
…
“The Cherokee… were tricked with an illegitimate treaty. In 1833, a small faction agreed to sign a removal agreement: the Treaty of New Echota. The leaders of this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees—led by Chief John Ross—signed a petition in protest. The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836. The Cherokee were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which time they would be forcibly removed. By 1838 only 2,000 had migrated; 16,000 remained on their land. The U.S. government sent in 7,000 troops, who forced the Cherokees into stockades at bayonet point. They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites looted their homes. Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.”
- PBS
“Like textile workers at the turn of the last century, Florida tomato harvesters are still paid by the piece. The average piece rate today is 50 cents for every 32-lbs of tomatoes they pick, a rate that has remained virtually unchanged since 1980. As a result of that stagnation, a worker today must pick more than 2.25 tons of tomatoes to earn minimum wage in a typical 10-hour workday — nearly twice the amount a worker had to pick to earn minimum wage thirty years ago, when the rate was 40 cents per bucket. Most farmworkers today earn less than $12,000 a year.”
- The Coalition of Immokalee Workers
The average salary for first grade teachers is $43,000.
- simplyhired.com
“The cost of making water safe continues to rise. Much of the existing drinking water infrastructure (underground networks of pipes, treatment plants, and other facilities) was built many years ago. The US EPA Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey, released in 2001, estimated that drinking water systems will need to invest $150.9 billion over a 20-year period to ensure the continued source development, storage, treatment, and distribution of safe drinking water. Many agree this is a very conservative low estimate.”
- Drinking Water Costs & Federal Funding, epa.gov
If You Were Laid Off Without Severance, How Long Would your Savings Cover Your Living Expenses?
- One Week or Less: 34%
- 2-4 Weeks: 16%
- 1-2 Months: 16%
- 3-5 Months: 14 %
- 6 Months or Longer: 20%
Monster.com poll (August 25, 2009)
“Of the 6.5 million immigrants who survived the crossing of the Atlantic and settled in the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1776, only 1 million were Europeans. The remaining 5.5 million were African. An average of 80 percent of these enslaved Africans—men, women, and children—were employed, mostly as field-workers. Women as well as children worked in some capacity. Only very young children (under six), the elderly, the sick, and the infirm escaped the day-to-day work routine.”
- Howard Dodson, How Slavery Helped Build a World Economy, National Geographic (February 3, 2002)
81% of the population of Bangladesh lives on less than $2 per day.
- Population Reference Bureau (2012)
“Angola prison, the state penitentiary of Louisiana, is the biggest prison in America. Built on the site of a former slave plantation, the 1,800-acre penal complex is home to more than 5,000 prisoners, the majority of whom will never walk the streets again as free men. Also known as the Farm, Angola took its name from the homeland of the slaves who used to work its fields, and in many ways still resembles a slave plantation today. Eighty per cent of the prisoners are African-Americans and, under the watchful eye of armed guards on horseback, they still work fields of sugar cane, cotton and corn, for up to 16 hours a day.”
- The Guardian (March 9, 2010)
“The Central Pacific’s Chinese immigrant workers received just $26-$35 a month for a 12-hour day, 6-day work week and had to provide their own food and tents. White workers received about $35 a month and were furnished with food and shelter. Incredibly, the Chinese immigrant workers saved as much as $20 a month which many eventually used to buy land. These workers quickly earned a reputation as tireless and extraordinarily reliable workers—‘quiet, peaceable, patient, industrious, and economical.’ Within two years, 12,000 of the Central Pacific railroad’s 13,500 employees were Chinese immigrants.
…
“Despite their heroic labors, California’s Chinese immigrants became the objects of discriminatory laws and racial violence. California barred these immigrants from appearing as witnesses in court, prohibited them from voting or becoming naturalized citizens, and placed their children in segregated school. The state imposed special taxes on ‘foreign’ miners and Chinese fishermen.”
- University of Houston “Digital History”
