by Dave Johnson | Apr 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Tax day. At a time when elites are lecturing us on deficits, giant corporations are demanding even lower taxes for themselves. Their message: "deficits equal austerity for thee and lower taxes for me." Tax "Reform" Giant corporations and opinion elites are calling for...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 14, 2013 | Blog
April 15 has never been considered a day for celebration, and it's especially tough to pay taxes when so many of us are struggling financially. But the real problem isn't taxation. Our real problem is the new "bipartisan" drive toward austerity, a mad obsession that...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
If you were stuck on the Washington beltway during the evening rush hour yesterday, you might have suspected that the Washington Metro area's crumbling beltway had already begun to collapse. Fortunately, yesterday's gridlock wasn't the result of a beltway collapse or...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
The "Grand Bargain" is about showing the world that we can hurt people, so they will know we are "serious." Reading Jason Linkins' HuffPo account of elite-pundit thinking about the "Grand Bargain," Passing 'Grand Bargain' Voters Don't Care About Is Critical To...
by Bill Scher | Apr 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
President Obama's budget proposal may have a lot of new concessions to Republicans, but on taxes, his flag is firmly planted where it has always been: Make the tax code more progressive. Already with ObamaCare and the fiscal cliff deal he has achieved the most...
by Ben Johnson | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
An estimated 60,000 converged on the Capitol on Wednesday to tell Congress to take legislative action to enact comprehensive and fair immigration reform. To borrow a line from so many of yesterday’s speakers and protesters, “the time is now.” But one group that...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Now this is interesting. Fidelity was able to flag an individual account for insider trading, presumably because suspicious patterns arose in the trading, leading to the arrest of a small-time player in the financial industry. And yet, despite handling his account for...
by Richard Long | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
The Congressional Progressive Caucus and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka pressed their opposition to President Obama’s proposed chained-CPI change to Social Security benefits at a Thursday afternoon news conference, denouncing it as a cut in benefits for those who...
by Richard Long | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
The Congressional Progressive Caucus and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka pressed their opposition to President Obama’s proposed chained-CPI change to Social Security benefits at a Thursday afternoon news conference, denouncing it as a cut in benefits for those who...
by Digby | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Some details are emerging about the so-called "softening" of the Chained-CPI for the most vulnerable. Here's one analysis of what we know so far from Shawn Fremsted at CEPR: And a just-released White House fact sheet claims that the proposal is coupled with “measures...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 11, 2013 | Minimum Wage
The corporate/conservative effort to gut the country's labor-law enforcement continues at full steam. Senate Republicans are blocking NLRB Board confirmations. Republican judges blocked the the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from operating until the Senate...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 11, 2013 | Chained CPI
The "chained CPI" proposal in President Obama's budget continues to draw much-deserved fire, which is only likely to increase as more information about it becomes known. Here are ten embarrassing facts about the chained CPI which the White House and its defenders...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 11, 2013 | Chained CPI
The White House is clearly struggling to save its budget’s “chained CPI” proposal in the face of powerful opposition from across the political spectrum. There's confusion surrounding their latest move, a “bump” that would slightly mitigate its effect for people who...
by Bill Scher | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
President's budget is "to the right of Simpson-Bowles" argues CAPs Michael Linden: "...the president is willing to accept overall federal spending levels that are an average of about 0.5 percentage points of gross domestic product less than those in Simpson-Bowles,...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 10, 2013 | Chained CPI
That was fast. Yesterday we suggested that the chained-CPI cut in President Obama's budget, which was presented as a gesture to Republicans, might instead be used to rebrand Democrats as "the anti-Social Security party." It took them fifteen minutes. A GOP official...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 10, 2013 | Blog
It's hard to imagine a more relevant moment for the National Urban League to release its State of Black America 2013 report. This year, after all, marks the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation —...
by Jeff Faux | Apr 10, 2013 | Blog
The Democratic Party’s long-term prospects have dramatically improved since the November election. They will control the White House for another four years. The Republicans, who lost the total vote for the House of Representatives, remain captive of an unpopular...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 10, 2013 | Blog
President Obama's budget proposal is officially released into the wild. The president and the media are talking a lot about what the budget's deficit reductions offer to satisfy the priorities of the 1 percent - the donor/owner class. But there are things in this...
by Bill Scher | Apr 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The President’s Budget: A Misguided Mission Statement OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "The president’s major purpose is not to address mass unemployment, not to build a new foundation for the economy, not to revive the middle class or redress Gilded...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 10, 2013 | The Sequester
Today, the president releases his budget for fiscal year 2014, the year that begins this October. Commentators and advocates will pour over its disparate parts, although the White House has already leaked its major contours. This document is less a budget for...
by Richard Long | Apr 9, 2013 | Chained CPI
Opponents of President Obama’s ”chained CPI” proposal to reduce cost-of-living increases in Social Security protested in front of the White House this afternoon, bringing with them boxes of petitions bearing two million signatures urging the president to not include...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 9, 2013 | Blog
"She is not dead, she doth not sleep. She hath awakened from the dream of life. 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife ..." Margaret Thatcher's death raises a difficult etiquette question: How do you write about a person whose...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 9, 2013 | Education, The Sequester
Everyone at all familiar with the Judgment of Solomon has to be aghast as political leaders reverse that Biblical wisdom and proceed to "split the difference" over who gets whose way on matters affecting children. Instead of putting the interests of children first,...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 9, 2013 | Blog
For years now Senate Republicans have been filibustering ... everything. At the end of last year there was an effort to convince Democrats in the Senate of the need to reform the filibuster so things We the People need to get done could get done. At the last minute,...
by Bill Scher | Apr 9, 2013 | Blog
Two-and-a-half months ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal addressed the Republican National Committee and said the following: "We must stop being the stupid party." "We must stop insulting the intelligence of voters." "It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 9, 2013 | Minimum Wage
As the U.S. Commerce Department released a report late last month showing corporate profits at a 60-year high, suddenly the big news was about how cheating surely must be rampant in social security disability. Wait, what? Also late last month, a Washington Post...
by Bill Scher | Apr 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Sinking American Electorate - African Americans Still In Depression OurFuture.org's Isaiah J. Poole: "When President Obama formally unveils his fiscal 2014 budget on Wednesday ... there will not be an all-out effort to address the depression-level...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 9, 2013 | Blog
When President Obama formally unveils his fiscal 2014 budget on Wednesday, a lot of the progressive movement focus will be on his plan to cut Social Security benefits through a reduced cost-of-living adjustment called the "chained CPI." But there will be another...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 9, 2013 | Chained CPI, The Sequester
It's time to think the unthinkable: The leader of the Democratic Party is about to submit a budget which cuts Social Security benefits. Party officials are reportedly promoting candidates with no track record on key issues and no apparent interest in politics. And...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 8, 2013 | Blog
Today's conventional wisdom in Congress on taxing the rich — that tax rates on income at our economic summit have gone as high as they can sensibly go — has no real evidence to support it. This past January, Congress raised the federal tax rate on joint return income...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 8, 2013 | Education
No offense, but the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building in Washington, DC is not a pretty sight. Crossing the National Mall on 4th street, you pass between the glisteningly modern National Air and Space Museum and the sculpted brown stone of the...
by Dean Baker | Apr 8, 2013 | Blog
The Washington Post seems to have a quota for pieces that spread misinformation on manufacturing. Today's piece by Robert Samuelson fills the quota for the day. The gist of the piece is that manufacturing employment has been declining in importance in the U.S. for...
by Ben Johnson | Apr 8, 2013 | Blog
When you’re a student taking out a loan, should the amount of protection you get from fraud differ based on the size of the lender? That is the question the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is about to decide as it draws up new regulations for student loan...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
Suppose you're in a bar and you overhear a couple of guys in the next booth talking about a plan to steal from people's houses. As you eavesdrop the plan unfolds: one will come to the front door pretending to be from the gas company warning the homeowner about a gas...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
Suppose you're in a bar and you overhear a couple of guys in the next booth talking about a plan to steal from people's houses. As you eavesdrop the plan unfolds: one will come to the front door pretending to be from the gas company warning the homeowner about a gas...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
No jobs. No growth. Falling income. Unaffordable colleges. A dying middle class. Young people without hope. The greatest economic inequality in modern history. And yet, in the midst of the Long Depression, we're told that President Obama intends to cuts Social...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 6, 2013 | Chained CPI
With all the controversy over the President's proposed "chained CPI" cuts to Social Security, it's worth noting the effect the economy is already having on Social Security benefits. We're seeing a growing divide between the "penthouse economy" and the one the rest of...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 6, 2013 | Chained CPI
This week it was announced that President Obama’s next budget will include a benefit cut to Social Security in the form of the “chained CPI,” a recalculation of cost-of-living increases at a lower rate. This move was met with dismay among progressive activists, which...
by Thom Hartmann | Apr 5, 2013 | Blog
It looks like President Obama is still open to negotiations with Republican economic terrorists. Details of the president's budget, set to be released April 10th, show that he will offer significant spending cuts to so-called “entitlement programs”- like Social...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 5, 2013 | Economy
Today's news was a one-two punch in the gut for the middle class. First, a terrible jobs report, then a Democratic President offers a budget that proposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The only thing on the public's mind is that we need jobs -- and the...
