FOREIGN OIL IMPORTS DESTROYING U.S. ECONOMY.

It's estimated that 1/2 of the nearly $1 TRILLION dollar per year U.S. trade deficit is caused by importing foreign oil into the U.S. (around $500 billion dollars per year.....roughly equal to our yearly defense budget).

Slashing spending to social welfare and education programs/grants will not solve this oil trade deficit.The U.S. currently burns around 20 million barrels of oil PER DAY.

Many African Americans, although not the largest recipients of government aid in the U.S., are still highly dependent on government money to make ends meet and give their children a college education. Cuts to social welfare spending will heavily impact them. We must consider that the U.S. Civil Rights Act was only past in 1964 and that has given African Americans approximately 45 years to recover from 400 years of economic disenfranchisement, slavery and abuse. Although European Americans have benefitted greatly from 400 years of FREE SLAVE LABOR we have never been asked to pay reparations for this historic wrong, the only thing we're required to do is pay our taxes, yet many on the far-right of the political spectrum and some of the wealthy here in the U.S. feel that paying taxes is an excessive burden on them.

Many are hoping that current tax/spending cuts to social welfare and educational programs in the U.S. will stimulate job growth in the U.S., but job growth will not benefit the elderly, the mentally and physically handicapped and others who are not able to work because of disabilty or age.

We must balance out our desire for a growing economy and jobs with compassion for the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

Alternate ways to stimulate economic growth in the U.S. include:

-long term investments in various forms of high speed rail/mass transit,
developing and building high mileage cars/electric cars,

-government funding/subsidies for rooftop solar panels and rooftop solar shingles to power those electric cars. Rooftop solar also decentralizes the electricity grid and makes our energy supply more secure while saving pristine desert areas from massive commercial solar parks.

-supporting local/organic agriculture (which uses far less fossil fuels for transport/less chemicals),

-demanding that our government tranfer subsidies from oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power plants and dams to subsidize the purchase and installation of rooftop solar panels/solar shingles to power our homes and electric cars

-making our cities more friendly to walking and biking.

-encourage our government to better support green building design and passive solar buildings which require very little, or no, electricity to heat, cool and light.

-removing some of the 80,000 dams in the U.S. to restore U.S. river and ocean fisheries which were once the richest in the world before the advent of widespread dam building here. Dam building which has blocked salmon, shad, sturgeon and many other species of gamefish from swimming up our rivers from oceans to spawn/lay eggs. (fisheries biologists have estimated that restoring U.S. river/ocean fisheries to historic high levels.....through dam removal etc., could potentially make fishing the largest industry in America). Only 6% of U.S. electricity comes from hydro-power dams. Salmon now sells for $5,400 dollars per barrel while crude oil sells for only $100 dollars per barrel, and heavily pollutes the earth.....which of these is more important to the U.S. economy?

All these things will reduce our nearly $500 billion dollar per year U.S. oil trade deficit without heavily impacting the poor. These efforts to reduce U.S. foreign oil consumption will also create millions of green jobs.

Please use the below links to write a short note or letter to your U.S. Senator or Representative suggesting that our government better fund ROOFTOP solar power and other technologies/alternatives which will greatly reduce our rapidly accumulating foreign oil trade deficit. Also request subsidies to ALL fossil fuel, nuclear and hydro-power companies be transferred to rooftop solar and other alternative energy solutions which are determined to be sustainable and do not impact our food supplies or fishing. (such as hydro-power dams and bio-fuels which are destroying fish populations and increasing food costs worldwide).

E-mail contact links to all 100 U.S. State Senators: (find your State Senators).

http://www.theorator.com/senate.html

E-mail contact links to all State representatives: (find your State Representatives).

http://www.theorator.com/government/house.html

E-mail contact link for U.S. Senate Committee Chairman on Commerce, Science and Transportation: (Kay Bailey Hutchinson).

http://hutchison.senate.gov/?p=email_kay