Archive
Trickle-Down Austerity
David Leonhardt: In all kinds of ways — consumer demand, the federal deficit, even the weather — the medium-term future is highly uncertain. But this uncertainty, while the main problem, is not the only problem. We are also committing an unforced economic error. We’re...
Progressive Breakfast - 7/11/2011
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: Job Bleeding:...
Job Bleeding Voters Must Apply Pressure
It seems that I begin a post every month by writing, “Another terrible jobs report.” And it seems I end that post each month asking why our leaders are ignoring the problem. Our country is in a jobs emergency, and our government is not doing its part to fill the gap...
Republicans Demand Layoffs As Cure For Job Losses
In response to today's terrible jobs report Republicans are demanding that even more government employees, contractors and others lose their jobs. They also demand that even more construction workers and others receiving government contracts lose their jobs, too. They...
Debt-Ceiling Deals Cuts Could Crash Economy
Negotiating with crazy people is always a bad idea and negotiating with hostage-takers is dangerous. But negotiating with crazy hostage-takers is worse than dangerously bad. The “debt-ceiling” deal being negotiated to keep the economy from being crashed could crash...
Deficit Reduction Trap Sprung -- Republicans Campaigning On Jobs
In the middle of the worst job crisis since the Depression many Democrats forgot about jobs and got all in a tizzy about cutting budgets. All the usual suspects made a lot of noise about deficit reduction, and the cocktail-party and dinner-party circuits all knowingly...
Todays Job Report Is Much Worse Than You Think
Today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report for June suggests the economy is again nearing even officially-defined recession and weakening further as state, local and federal government cuts to jobs and contracts to private employers begin to take a serious toll....
A President On the Verge of a Political Breakdown
This isn't the first time the White House has floated the idea of Social Security cuts as part of a 'grand bargain' with Republicans, and it's not the first time there's been a groundswell of opposition. But that opposition has never crystallized so quickly into...
Obama Social Security and Medicare Cuts Reasonable Not To Most Americans
The Washington Post and NY Times report that President Obama will offer Republican negotiators major cuts to Social Security and Medicare when they meet today. Supporters of these essential programs are outraged -- and rightly so. We've been told that Social Security,...
Budget Austerity Is Crippling The Economy
The unemployment numbers released today are terrible, and they show that budget austerity is crippling the recovery. After the worst recession since the Great Depression, the federal government made an effort to stimulate growth and to help state and local governments...
