Over 2,400 publicly-owned water and wastewater systems in the United States contract with private firms to provide system operations and maintenance services. Many of these 2,400 contracts are held by domestic firms with a foreign parent. For example, Veolia Water, the U.S. subsidiary of a French firm, serves more than 600 communities and 14 million people through public-private partnerships with local governments, including the nation’s largest water partnership in Indianapolis. In addition, 15 percent of the U.S. population is served by approximately 20,000 private, regulated water and wastewater utilities. Most of these are owned by domestic subsidiaries of foreign firms.
The United States Defense Department spends more than $500 billion annually. This represents nearly ten times the amount of any other nation. Our peace time armed forces stands at more than 500,000 citizens. This is in direct contradiction to the framer’s intentions.
Rights
Citizens continue to see their rights, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to erode. From wearing t-shirts to displaying banners, citizens’ rights to express themselves are being trampled. 43 Senators voted for a bill this year that would have required U.S. political bloggers with over 500 readers to register as lobbyists or face criminal penalties of up to one year in jail. It would have also required grassroots causes, many operating on a shoe string as it is, to register and report quarterly to Congress.
The Federal government issued a directive restricting the ability of government scientists traveling abroad to discuss global warming, sea ice, and polar bears. Our surgeon general has declared he was censored by the Federal government.
On various topics ranging from harm done by local school boards to federal wiretapping of citizens, to protection of the environment, courts are ruling that ordinary citizens “do not have standing” i.e. the right to sue.
FBI agents violated several provisions of the Patriot Act. These provisions extended the government's powers in fighting terrorism, but put certain limits on those broad powers to ensure the constitutionality of any efforts to obtain information. Rights of citizens were violated when agents had not even issued national security letters before requesting credit, phone, or bank information.
USA Today reported on May 11, 2006 a National Security Administration (NSA) program in which the federal government collects and stores phone records from all major phone companies. With the exception of one company, every major telephone provider has complied with the NSA's program. The collecting and storing private phone records without a warrant based on probable cause violates a person's Fourth Amendment rights. the police gather phone records in investigations, but suspicion of guilt is involved. In this instance, information is collected and stored without any grounds for suspicion.
A White House executive order of July 17, 2007 violates the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the US Constitution. It repeals one of the fundamental tenets of US democracy, which is the right to free expression and dissent.Treatment / Interactions
Approximately 45 million Americans do not have health insurance of which about 20% are children. More than 60% of uninsured adults with diabetes did not have a health professional examine their feet or have a dilated eye exam. 25% of uninsured adults with heart disease did not see a health professional last year. 59% of uninsured adults with an arthritis type disease had unmet medical or prescription needs. About 30% of all Americans report they did not get a prescription filled because of cost.
Approximately half of all personal bankruptcies cite medical expenses as the primary reason.
The poverty rate now stands at 12.7% with the bottom 20% having only 3.3% of the aggregate income.
As of 2004, the tax code was 54,846 pages. There are 1.2 million paid tax preparers and the IRS employs 100,000 workers. It costs Americans $100 to $200 billion to prepare and fill out their tax forms every year. 32 million penalties are assessed each year.
According to a Brookings Institute study, unless it is reformed, by 2010 the alternative minimum tax will affect 33 million taxpayers, almost one-third of all individual tax returns. This includes 97 percent of married couples with two or more children earning between $75,000 and $100,000.
Just over half of our eligible citizens vote. The citizens of the United States rank 34th in voter participation among those countries which hold free elections.
Currently, software used in election systems remains the proprietary property of vendors. This situation has created a continual problem when anomalous results have been reported and independent experts are denied the ability to review how the systems work.
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