by Bill Scher | Jul 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Bipartisan Deal Struck To End Setting Student Loan Rates Student loan deal reached. HuffPost: "A bipartisan group of senators struck a deal late Wednesday tooverhaul the federal student loan program, tying interest rates on new loans to the U.S. government’s cost to...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Two weeks ago, with two rulings in two days, the Supreme Court gave a whole new meaning to what W.E. DuBois described as a "double consciousness" or a "two-ness" of being. When the Court's decision in Windsor ruled a major part of the Defense of Marriage Act...
by Jane Yurechko | Jul 10, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Once again, Congress has failed our students. Today, the bill to roll back student loan interest rates to 3.4 percent proposed by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) failed to get cloture, meaning it will not be able to move forward for full floor consideration and an up-or-down...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
Remember the Washington Post article claiming that the "bad stuff" that was supposed because of the sequester didn’t, and thus sequestration can’t be all that bad? Well, the sequester is still on, and still doing harm. Just ask the 650,000 DOD...
by Stan Collender | Jul 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
In this era when almost all federal budget process deadlines are routinely missed or completely ignored, it's hard to believe that the fiscal 2014 mid-session review of the budget was released yesterday, a full week ahead of the July 15 statutory deadline. The...
by Digby | Jul 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
I don't think I need to point out just how obvious these people are being, do I? State officials across the South are aggressively moving ahead with new laws requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls after the Supreme Court decision striking down a...
by Bill Scher | Jul 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
Reid Readies Filibuster Ultimatum "Sen. Harry Reid ready to go nuclear on executive branch nominations" reports Politico: "Reid appears to have enough support within the Democratic Caucus to go forward with the proposal, several Democratic senators and aides said....
by Bill Scher | Jul 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
The January deal on Senate rules forged by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell has actually held. It just wasn't very ambitious in its scope. The deal was designed to cut down on dilatory tactics so they could, in the words of one senator, "get back...
by Richard Long | Jul 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
House Democrats joined with victims of unfair labor practices today to deliver a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, signed by 201 Democratic House members, asking him to stop the obstruction in the Senate and to allow votes on President Obama’s National...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
I’ve written a few times about how austerity has done a number on Portugal. It’s increased inequality, shrunk the economy, increased the country’s death rate, driven unemployment to record highs, led to a mass exodus of educated-but-unemployed young Portuguese (much...
by Bill Scher | Jul 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
Student Loan Vote Soon Student loan vote expected tomorrow, but no deal in sight. Roll Call: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed cloture Monday on a Democrat-sponsored one-year extension of the expired fixed rate of 3.4 percent for subsidized Stafford...
by Robert Reich | Jul 9, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
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...
by Leo Gerard | Jul 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
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...
by Jane Yurechko | Jul 9, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
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...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
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...
by Nehemiah Rolle | Jul 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
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...
by Derek Pugh | Jul 8, 2013 | Financial Reform
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...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
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. There are a number of reasons for the employment gap between African...
by Bill Scher | Jul 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
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...
by Stan Collender | Jul 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
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...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jul 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
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....
by Roger Hickey | Jul 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
For four long years after the recession officially ended, conservative austerity policies have sabotaged America's economic recovery, condemning millions of Americans to unemployment and poverty. And in Europe, the same policy regime of spending cuts aimed at deficit...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 5, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
I got a check from the U.S. Treasury in the mail this week. It was both a surprise and a mystery. It was a surprise, because I wasn't expecting any checks, least of all from the federal government. At first the reason why the government sent me a check was a mystery....
by Thom Hartmann | Jul 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
Yesterday, the Obama Administration announced that one of the major provisions in the Affordable Care Act will be delayed for one year. Under the law, starting in 2014, businesses with over 50 employees would have been required to provide healthcare to workers or pay...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was the Fourth of July. That's the day we celebrate the vision and courage shown by our nation's founders. July 4th is the day they published a document which said it was "self-evident" that everyone has "certain unalienable rights," including the rights to...
by Digby | Jul 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
You have to give them credit for consistency: Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.
by Robert Borosage | Jul 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
This month’s lackluster jobs report – 195,000 net jobs created in the month of June with the unemployment rate unchanged at 7.6 percent – leaves Americans adrift. More than 22 million Americans remain in need of full-time work. The participation rate in the labor...
by Richard Long | Jul 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
Here’s a scary thought: On Labor Day, a day celebrating the contributions that the labor movement has brought Americans – the 40-hour workweek, the weekend, minimum wage – there may be no one to enforce labor law. The National Labor Relations Board is the five-person...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 3, 2013 | Making it in America
The trade deficit is a measure of how much money and how many jobs we are transferring in or out of the country. The May trade deficit was just reported, and it jumped sharply. Other countries see themselves as countries and compete with us as a country while we...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
How did we get so far from the albeit naïve but nonetheless noble vision of the America that President Obama offered on his election night in 2008, that we are not just "a collection of red states and blue states" but "the United States of America"? One reason,...
by Bill Scher | Jul 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
Over at TheWeek.com, I explain how Sen. Marco Rubio missed his moment to lead on immigration reform, as the final Senate deal got done without him and he was unable to woo conservative opinion leaders despite his best efforts. But I also note Rubio can still play a...
by Bill Scher | Jul 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
ObamaCare Employer Mandate Delayed WH delays ObamaCare employer mandate for an additional year. NYT: "'I am utterly astounded,' said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University and an advocate of the law. 'It boggles the mind....
by Richard Eskow | Jul 2, 2013 | Uncategorized
It’s easy to fall into despair, to have the dark thoughts come unbidden and unwelcome. You probably know the thoughts I mean: The battle's over. Democracy lost. The big-money interests always win. There’s no point in even trying anymore. Why shouldn’t we feel that...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 2, 2013 | Uncategorized
For just a second, I mistook the Washington Post for Peggy Noonan. That’s how unbelievably out of touch with reality and the lives of ordinary Americans a recent Post article about the sequester is. The title of the article by David Fahrenthold and Lisa Rein...
by Digby | Jul 2, 2013 | Uncategorized
"Congress has decided to let interest rates rise on student loans, because the bill to stuff puppies in a sack and toss them in the pond was stuck in committee." Yes, they're really doing it. I just heard Stephen Hayes on Fox say that the rates should double because...
by Jeff Bryant | Jul 2, 2013 | Education
Too often, when it comes to determining whether a new public program is too expensive or not, no one asks, “Compared to what?” What high-performing business, for instance, would forego the need to invest new capital in something that is vital to its profitability and...
by Leo Gerard | Jul 2, 2013 | Uncategorized
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court gave Dixie throwbacks license to resume intimidating minority voters, diluting black and Latino balloting districts and instituting the 21st century version of poll taxes – that being excessive and expensive voter ID requirements. The...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 2, 2013 | Blog
"The American people are on our side," says Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "The time is now." Ellison was talking to a small group of writers and activists about higher tax rates for US corporations. Although he was upbeat,...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 29, 2013 | Blog
During the first years of the Obama administration the Republican strategy was to obstruct efforts to improve the economy and bring more jobs. Then, at election time they went to the public saying, "Obama hasn't made things better." But now they are moving into...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 28, 2013 | Blog
Immigration reform has really got Republicans tied up in knots. Only 14 Senate Republicans voted for immigration reform, even after two weeks of debate, and with the addition of beefed up border security measures. Now it's up to the House, where Republicans managed to...
