by Richard Eskow | Jun 28, 2013 | Blog
A judicious writer avoids adjectives like "mindblowing," especially when covering political or economic issues. But no other word seems to describe the stunning reality of corporate taxation in modern America, which cries out for the italics-heavy,...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 28, 2013 | Blog
"If any of you can show just cause why these two may not lawfully be married," goes the familiar line from the marriage liturgy, "speak now; or else for ever hold your peace." After Wednesday, there is no just cause why same-sex couples may not be lawfully married....
by Nehemiah Rolle | Jun 28, 2013 | Blog
The Farm Bill’s recent defeat in the House of Representatives opens up a second chance to get food policy right — including the food aid we give struggling individuals and families. A Michigan and Ohio program could provide some inspiration. The legislation would have...
by Dean Baker | Jun 28, 2013 | Blog
The Social Security and Medicare cutters are very unhappy. Who can blame them? The vast majority of people across the political spectrum oppose their plans to cut these programs. Furthermore, improved budget projections (partly because of cuts that are very bad news)...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 28, 2013 | Blog
The Economic Policy Institute has launched a new website, Inequality.is, where users can take part in an interactive experience that educates them on how economic inequality is real, created, and expensive. In a press call today representatives from EPI spoke further...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
This coming Tuesday there are actions to fight cuts to Social Security, and to demand that the Senate confirm 5 members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to keep the board operating. NLRB -- Give Us 5 – NLRB Members Rally Tuesday. If you are a union member...
by Bill Scher | Jun 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
At TheWeek.com today, I lay out "Boehner's Dilemma" on immigration. If House Speaker John Boehner lets the Senate immigration bill pass the House with mostly Democratic votes, he risks a Tea Party uprising that could spark primary challenges against several Republican...
by Digby | Jun 27, 2013 | Uncategorized
I don't know about you, but this makes me proud as punch: Country Median Wealth Per Adult 1. Australia $193,653 2. Luxembourg $153,967 3. Japan $141,410 4. Italy ...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 27, 2013 | Uncategorized
Waking up this morning, after yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act, is a lot like waking the morning after your wedding day/night. Something momentous and life-changing has happened. The world looks pretty much the same as it did the day...
by Robert Borosage | Jun 27, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Interest rates on student loans will double to 6.8 percent on July 1 unless Congress acts. But it seems increasingly likely that the Congress will take off for the Fourth of July recess without addressing the problem. The major sticking point: Republicans in the House...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 26, 2013 | Uncategorized
Madison. Occupy... Now in North Carolina it's Moral Mondays. In Texas it's a filibuster, hundreds of thousands watching online, and the spectator gallery goes nuts when Republicans try to shut down the speaker. In Pennsylvania low-wage workers are sleeping in teh...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 26, 2013 | Blog
We are citizens. That's what I said to my husband, when I called him moments after getting the news that the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It's borrowed from a line uttered by Prior near the end of Tony Kushner's play...
by Jane Yurechko | Jun 26, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
As the deadline of July 1 approaches for preventing student Stafford Loan rates from doubling to 6.8 percent, it seems less and less likely Congress will be able to push any legislation through to help our students. Student groups are concerned, certain members of...
by Derek Pugh | Jun 26, 2013 | Uncategorized
The Democracy Corps recent Congressional Battleground survey provides surprising insights into the upcoming midterm election. In the most contested battleground districts, Democrats can defy the conventional wisdom that they are doomed to lose seats in an off-year...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 26, 2013 | Uncategorized
I have been writing about the so-called IRS "scandal." It turns out the whole thing was a set-up from the start. Republicans told the Inspector General to make it look like only conservative groups received scrutiny from the IRS, but all groups received the normal...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 26, 2013 | Uncategorized
"Democracy has been stolen and we have to take it back." - Senator Merkley (D-OR) at Netroots Nation. We have to end the filibuster, at the very least for nominations, if not for everything. This has to happen because Republicans are now obstructing everything, and...
by Jeff Bryant | Jun 26, 2013 | Education
The end of another school year is leaving a bad taste in many people's mouths. A steady diet of government austerity and top-down "accountability" mandates have left numerous communities across the country with a severe case of sour stomachs over how their schools are...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
Inequality is the most pressing economic issue in the US today. The Economic Policy Institute has created the website Inequality.is to bring the issue home to people. The site explains how inequality is real, personal, expensive, created and fixable. Inequality.is...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
As I wrote last week, I'm pretty much used to white conservatives peculiar relationship to America's peculiar institution. Whether they're defending it, or using it to define everything and anything they dislike, white conservatives just can't stop talking about...
by Richard Long | Jun 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
For most workers, today is a day worth celebrating. It marks the 75th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt, which set the minimum wage, requires time-and-a-half overtime pay, forbid minors from oppressive child...
by Jane Yurechko | Jun 25, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
A fresh possibility for helping to solve the student loan crisis has emerged – in the form of Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-Ohio) Refinancing Education Funding to Invest for the Future Act. The main goal is to create opportunities for student loan borrowers to take...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
Our democracy was under siege even before the Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday on the Voting Rights Act. This decision caps the Court's clean sweep on behalf of the United States Chamber of Commerce and is part of a concerted effort to seize democracy on behalf of...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
Think of it as a two for one deal. Not only do our tax dollars subsidize low wages, but taxpayers also subsidize the wage theft that usually goes hand in hand with low-wage work. At least, that's what workers at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, DC are...
by Bill Scher | Jun 25, 2013 | Climate
The centerpiece of President Obama's climate strategy is a planned package of Environmental Protection Agency rules that would cap carbon on all existing and future power plants, the biggest source of our greenhouse gas emissions. Such rules are essential to avert a...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
Yep, we were "O'Keefed" again. It turns out that the IRS really was just doing its job -- scrutinizing all kinds of groups applying for special tax status, not "targeting conservatives" as has been widely reported. Of course anti-government scandal-mongers are trying...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 24, 2013 | Uncategorized
The Fair Labor Standards Act – the law that gave us the minimum wage and the 40-hour work-week – turns 75 on Tuesday. President Obama could commemorate the day by taking a long-overdue action that would fulfill a campaign promise and heal a deep scar in the nation's...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 24, 2013 | Making it in America
Companies say they are being patriotic and responsible by bringing jobs and manufacturing back to the US. Is it true? And how come you can't buy clothes that fit anymore? At Netroots Nation the panel What We Can Do to Expose “Red, White and Blue-Washing” took a look...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jun 24, 2013 | Uncategorized
House Republicans, with help from some Wall Street-friendly Democrats, are rushing to repeal the most promising Dodd-Frank Act check on excessive executive pay. You won't believe their rationale. Only 10 percent of Americans now have confidence in Congress, Gallup has...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 23, 2013 | Uncategorized
In "The Unfinished March," the first in a series reports from the Economic Policy Institute, economist Algernon Austin outlines the "unfinished business" of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Progress on civil rights, such as voting rights and laws...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 21, 2013 | Minimum Wage
The minimum wage has not been raised in forever – more and more people are falling behind. A few are getting fabulously wealthy from this arrangement. The Progressive Caucus held a Netroots Nation event today to launch the kickoff of their “Raise Up America” Campaign....
by Bill Moyers | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political...
by Richard Long | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
Quick: List the most important jobs in America. Odds are “teacher” made that list. According to a Harris Interactive Poll, teachers ranked among the five most prestigious jobs in America. That is why Lee Iacocca, former president and CEO of Chrysler said, “In a...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
Republicans have a long and peculiar relationship with America's "peculiar institution." White conservatives can't stop talking about it. One minute they declare that African-Americans should "get over slavery," The next minute, they suggest that Blacks should be...
by Bill Scher | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
I've commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the formal beginning of the Howard Dean presidential campaign with an article at The Week, "4 ways Howard Dean changed American politics." Dean helped make liberalism respectable again, strip the bark off the Republican...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
I always liked those scenes in old Westerns where the ranchers get together to face a common threat to their livelihood, usually some greedy family dynasty that's scheming with a big bank, railroad, or mining operation. The scene always starts the same way: “Boys,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
You may have seen stories about the poor quality of Washington, D.C.’s public schools. You probably have also heard about how Michelle Rhee was brought from near-obscurity to take over the city’s schools, overnight becoming a national symbol of dramatic education...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
Can your boss do that? Really? What can you do about it? Can your boss deny you vacation time? Can your boss cut your pay? Can your boss fire you for calling in sick? Can your boss make you work in a dangerous area? Can your boss make you stand all day? Can your boss...
by Derek Pugh | Jun 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Every day, Americans take more than 260 million trips over structurally deficient bridges to visit friends and family, pick up their children from school, and go to work, according to a new report by Transportation for America. And that aspect of America’s crumbling...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees president Lee A. Saunders took to the pages of The Huffington Post this week to call conservatives out on the "class war" they are waging against workers and to assert that unions are "the first and last...
by Jane Yurechko | Jun 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Last Tuesday a federal court in New York ruled that unpaid interns with the films “Black Swan” and “500 Days of Summer” were employees under current law and that Fox Searchlight violated their right to a minimum wage. The unpaid internship is an aspect of the struggle...
