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News Release | MoPIRG Foundation | Food

Ag Subsidies Pay for 21 Twinkies per Taxpayer, But Only Half of an Apple Apiece

Federal subsidies for commodity crops are subsidizing junk food additives like high fructose corn syrup, enough to pay for 21 Twinkies per taxpayer every year, according to MoPIRG’s new report, Apples to Twinkies 2012. Meanwhile, limited subsidies for fresh fruits and vegetables would buy one half of an apple per taxpayer.

Report | MoPIRG Foundation | Food

Apples to Twinkies 2012

In this report, we find that in 2011, over $1.28 billion in taxpayer subsidies went to junk food ingredients, bringing the total to a staggering $18.2 billion since 1995. To put that figure in perspective, $18.2 billion is enough to buy 2.9 billion Twinkies every year - 21 for every single American taxpayer.

News Release | MoPIRG | Higher Ed

Responding to Students, Congress Extends Low College Loan Rate

Statement of Rich Williams, MoPIRG Higher Education Advocate, on the Congressional passage of bipartisan legislation to prevent subsidized Stafford student loan interest rates from doubling:

Congress listened to students and their families and delivered a bill that stops student loan interest rates from doubling. Students already face unprecedented student loan debt and adding an additional $1,000 more would not only crunch individual borrowers, but would have further weighed down the recovering economy. We applaud Congress for coming together to pass this much-needed legislation.

News Release | MoPIRG | Transportation

Transportation Bill is a Step Backwards

Statement by Phineas Baxandall, MoPIRG’s Senior Transportation Analyst, regarding the disappointing federal Transportation Bill as released from conference committee today.

News Release | MoPIRG | Health Care

Supreme Court Upholds Health Reform

Today’s decision is good news for consumers. Insurance companies can’t go back to the days of dropping your coverage once you become ill, or denying coverage to sick children. And beginning in 2014, the days of insurers being able to deny anyone coverage for “pre-existing conditions” will be history.

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News Release | MoPIRG | Food

Apples to Twinkies: Comparing Federal Subsidies of Fresh Produce and Junk Food

SAINT LOUIS, MO –The Missouri Public Interest Research Group (MoPIRG) show in a new report Apples to Twinkies, how taxpayers have been subsidizing junk food additives, like high fructose corn syrup, for decades. Federal subsidies for commodity crops have flooded markets with cheap, nutritionally empty junk food. These subsidies are enough to pay for 19 Twinkies per taxpayer every year. Meanwhile, subsidies for fresh fruits and vegetables buy less than a quarter of an apple per taxpayer per year.

News Release | MoPIRG | Consumer Protection

Advocates Call on Congress to Cut Wasteful Subsidies, Not Public Priorities

As the U.S. Senate began negotiations to stave off a federal government shutdown, representatives from MOPIRG were joined by Environment Missouri state advocate Ted Mathys and St. Charles mayor Patricia York at a press event at St. Louis City Hall to urge the Senate to focus their spending cuts on wasteful handouts to narrow special interests.

News Release | MoPIRG | Transportation

Obama Budget Seeks Major Boost in Transportation Investment

Statement by MoPIRG Senior Tax and Budget Analyst Phineas Baxandall, on the Obama administration’s FY 2012 transportation budget proposal, which includes a major increase in transportation funding and an $8 billion annual investment in high-speed rail.

News Release | MoPIRG | Transportation

Vice President Biden Unveils Bold New High Speed Rail Plan

Statement of MoPIRG Federal Transportation Advocate, Dan Smith, who was an invited guest at Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s announcement that the administration plans to invest $53 billion over the next six years in high-speed rail.

News Release | MoPIRG | Transportation

Obama’s Goal: Connecting 80 Percent of Americans with High-Speed Rail

Statement of MoPIRG Transportation Associate Dan Smith on President Obama’s remarks on infrastructure as prepared to deliver in the State of the Union Address.

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Report | U.S. Public Interest Research Group and National Taxpayers Union | Budget

Toward Common Ground

To break through the ideological divide that has dominated Washington this past year and offer a pathway to address the nation’s fiscal problems, the National Taxpayers Union and MoPIRG joined together to identify mutually acceptable deficit reduction measures. This report documents our findings.

Report | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

Ten Reasons Why We Need the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Now

This report outlines predatory financial practices that hurt consumers and helped collapse the economy, costing us eight million jobs, millions of foreclosed homes and trillions of dollars in lost home and retirement values. It explains these and other emerging problems as “10 Reasons We Need The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Now.”

Report | U.S. PIRG | Health Care

Building a Better Health Care Marketplace

The creation of a new health insurance exchange offers our state the chance to build a better marketplace for health care. The exchange can help individuals and small businesses by increasing competition and improving choices in the state’s insurance market. By providing better options and better information, and negotiating on behalf of its enrollees, the exchange can level the playing field for consumers.

Report | Consumer Protection

Big Banks, Bigger Fees

Since Congress largely deregulated consumer deposit (checking and savings) accounts beginning in the early 1980s, the PIRGs have tracked bank deposit account fee changes and documented the banks’ long-term strategy to raise fees, invent new fees and make it harder to avoid fees.

Report | U.S. PIRG | Safe Energy

Unacceptable Risk: Two Decades of “Close Calls,” Leaks and Other Problems at U.S. Nuclear Reactors

American nuclear power plants are not immune to the types of natural disasters, mechanical failures, human errors, and losses of critical electric power supplies that have characterized major nuclear accidents such as the one at Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. Indeed, at several points over the last 20 years, American nuclear power plants have experienced “close calls” that could have led to damage to the reactor core and the subsequent release of large amounts of radiation.

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STOP TAX DODGERS

Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.

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YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP

At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.

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Reclaim Democracy

The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."

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BUILDING A BETTER HEALTH CARE MARKETPLACE

Now the fight for health care reform is in Missouri.

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PRIORITY ACTION

Some of the nation’s best-known companies — including GE, Google and Goldman Sachs — have avoided paying the taxes they owe, costing us $100 billion last year.

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