fresh voices from the front lines of change

Democracy

Health

Climate

Housing

Education

Rural

Archive

The Trillion-Dollar Scare Tactic

Today, the Washington Post casually warns that "the annual federal budget deficit already is spiraling toward $1 trillion -- about 7 percent of the gross domestic product -- a level not seen since the end of World War II," to raise concern about the size of any...

Down At The Mall, The Shopping Spree is Over

There's an e-mail making the rounds this week: STORE CLOSINGS AND LAYOFFS: By the end of Dec. 2008 as announced Circuit City Filed Bankruptcy, they promised to keep all stores open for the holiday season, but afterwards, they plan on closing 155 stores nationwide. Ann...

Conservatism: Trashing Government on Its Way Out

Reading the headlines over the past week, I'm beginning to wonder if there's a single agency in the United States government that conservatives haven't left in worse shape than they found it. I've been reading about demoralized government employees, under-resourced...

The Growing Unemployment Line

Front page of the Daily Hampshire Gazette here in Northampton, MA offers some stark news. Unemployment lines have more than doubled since last year in the Western MA counties of Hampshire and Franklin, and the state unemployment offices don't have the staff yet to...

Free Fall

Free fall. The U.S. has lost private sector jobs for 10 straight months. One quarter of all businesses in the U.S. plan to cut payroll over the next year. Retail sales fell in October by the largest monthly drop on record. Auto sales have collapsed, driving the auto...

Romney Jumps On The Worker-Bashing Bandwagon

Rick explored why Mitt Romney is compelled to bury his home state of Michigan and the automobile industry that generated his family's wealth. Let's also explore the fertilizer he's using. In his New York Times oped, Romney says: "First, [the US automakers'] huge...

Build, Baby, Build: An Opportunity For Unity

A safe prediction: Compared with the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration is going to invest more public dollars in rebuilding and modernizing American infrastructure. There will certainly be debate over how much investment by our government is needed . The...

Our Demand For Real Investment

In a Library of Congress room across the street from the Capitol, about 100 Capitol Hill staffers, activists and experts gathered to build the case for upending the conventional political wisdom that America can't afford right now to invest in itself and its people....

Obama: Don't Worry About The Deficit

Bernie Horn is right that the most immediate fight we face is to prioritize massive public investment to get the economy back on track and de-prioritize short-term deficit reduction. One thing now is crystal clear: which side the President-Elect is on. On "60 Minutes"...

Pin It on Pinterest