Archive
Why Republicans Want to Tax Students and Not Polluters
A basic economic principle is government ought to tax what we want to discourage, and not tax what we want to encourage.
For example, if we want less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we should tax carbon polluters. On the other hand, if we want more students from lower-income families to be able to afford college, we shouldn’t put a tax on student loans.
Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, congressional Republicans are intent on doing exactly the opposite.
Stop in the Name of Love – of Country
The conduct of the New York State Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in rehabilitating the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge can only be described as anti-American. The MTA plans to send $235.7 million of Americans’ hard-earned toll dollars to China for foreign steel and...
Tell These Senators To Join The Student Loan Rate Rollback
Now that the deadline has passed to prevent student loan rates from doubling to almost 7 percent, some members of Congress are scrambling to fix the problem before students sign new loans for the fall. Today. we’re asking you to participate in a click-to-call campaign...
Where the Hell Is the Outrage?
From the first breath of life to the last, our lives are being stolen out from under us. From infant care and early education to Social Security and Medicare, the dominant economic ideology is demanding more lifelong sacrifices from the vulnerable to appease the gods...
Middle-Class Struggle Is 'A Matter of Light And Gas' In A PBS Documentary
While the focus on deficit reduction and austerity continues to permeate the economic dialogue, two families in Wisconsin have dealt with the everyday pains of the jobless and underpaid American middle class. Bill Moyers has charted their journey for a decade on his...
Conservative Obstruction Crippling Two Key Watchdogs
Though the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened shop almost three years ago, it has yet to be fully functional because of the financial industry lobby and its allies in Congress. Today, Sen. Elizabeth Warren along with Americans for Financial Reform held a...
African-American Job Loss, Illustrated
In "Finishing the March: African-Americans and the Jobs Deficit," I attempted to explain how the disappearance of good jobs, with benefits, and livable wages hit African-Americans particularly hard. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. This animated GIF from the Center for Economic Policy Research, explaining where good jobs have gone for Black workers, popped up in my reading queue over the 4th of July holiday. It does a good job of illustrating what's happened to African-American workers over the last few decades.
On Immigration, House and Senate May Not Be As Far Apart As You Think
The Senate immigration reform bill's $46 billion "border surge" was supposed to bring more conservatives on board. While it helped get enough conservatives for a solid 68-vote majority in the Senate, many other conservatives are attacking it as wasteful government...
Are 4th of July Parades Wasteful Government Spending?
I posted back in April about how some businesses in Colorado were doing the equivalent of voluntarily paying additional taxes when the sequester spending cuts forced Yellowstone National Park not to do its customary spring snow removal on park roads. Waiting for the snow to melt rather than plowing it off the roads threatened to reduce the number of visitors to the areas surrounding the park and, therefore, the amount of business the very tourist-heavy stores, restaurants, hotels, etc. would do. Lydia DePillis reported much the same thing in The Washington Post this past weekend when she wrote about how businesses and some individuals were paying for the 4th of July celebrations -- especially parades -- that previously had been provided by local governments
Can We Afford to Wait for Redistribution?
The 'market' isn't working for working people. The rich have rigged the rules. We ought to keep trying, of course, to reduce the resulting inequality. But why not, unions are asking, end the rule-rigging? Sometimes we need new words to get a grasp on new ideas....
