by Roger Hickey | Apr 5, 2013 | Chained CPI
President Obama’s decision to include cuts to Social Security benefits in his budget is wrong policy and dumb politics. His chained CPI plan is wrong because it hurts Americans who have worked hard their entire lives and who need the support that Social Security gives...
by Digby | Apr 5, 2013 | Blog
Mark this day. For the first time in history, a Democratic president has officially proposed to cut the Democratic Party's signature New Deal program, Social Security: President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 5, 2013 | Economy
Dismal jobs production in March – only 88,000 net jobs created, not sufficient even to cover people coming into the workforce – is a wake-up call to Washington. The weak recovery is now floundering in face of harsh headwinds – the payroll tax hike, the beginnings of...
by Bill Scher | Apr 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
Obama Proposes Chained CPI Obama to include Chained CPI in budget proposal. NYT: "President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to...
by Derek Pugh | Apr 5, 2013 | Economy, Minimum Wage, The Sequester
Millennials – the largest, best educated, and most diverse generation in our nation’s history – have one question for Democrats seeking election in 2014: Do your values really reflect ours? Democrats have reason to worry about what the answer would be from the 80...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 5, 2013 | Too Big To Jail
Have the Wall Street Democrats of “Third Way” or their predecessors in the Clintonite “Democratic Leadership Council” ever been right about an important economic issue? That’s not meant as a thoughtless insult or flippant one-liner. We consider it a legitimate line...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 4, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Watch this opening from today's All-In With Chris Hayes. Seriously, you might even tear up like I did. I'm talking about his opening monologue about the Thursday fast-food strike in NY, and what this means. At about 1 minute into this clip he talks about why this...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 4, 2013 | Uncategorized
Republicans criticize government spending when it is about making our lives better. Of course, by definition all government spending is done to make our lives better. (In a democracy government spending is We, the People deciding how and where to spend the money....
by Dave Johnson | Apr 4, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Republicans criticize government spending when it is about making our lives better. Of course, by definition all government spending is done to make our lives better. (In a democracy government spending is We, the People deciding how and where to spend the money....
by Digby | Apr 4, 2013 | The Sequester
Jonathan Chait flagged this quote from Eric Cantor today and came up with an interesting theory as to why he said it: Mr. Cantor complained that the president, while insisting on additional tax increases, still has not embraced the structural changes to Medicare,...
by Thom Hartmann | Apr 4, 2013 | Blog
The Tennessee General Assembly is trying to subvert democracy. Republican lawmakers in that state want to revise our election process, and give themselves the power to select which candidates appear on the ballot for U.S. Senator. This is the latest GOP tactic to...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 4, 2013 | The Sequester
"Honey, if you can't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else?…..Can I get an amen?" -- RuPaul One of the most interesting things about the focus on marriage equality in the past couple of weeks has been the Republican Party's reaction to all the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 4, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The Scarring Effect of Long-Term Unemployment OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "A new report from the National Employment Law Project, 'Scarring Effects: Demographics of the Long-Term Unemployed and the Danger of Ignoring the Jobs Deficit,' is a blaring...
by Bill Scher | Apr 4, 2013 | Blog
A new report from the National Employment Law Project, "Scarring Effects: Demographics of the Long-Term Unemployed and the Danger of Ignoring the Jobs Deficit," is a blaring siren to policymakers in Washington. While noting that nearly 5 million people have been out...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 3, 2013 | Blog
Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith is definitely on a mission these days, barnstorming the country not only to promote his latest book, "Who Stole the American Dream?," but to help us change the focus of the Washington political debate...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 3, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Years ago I heard an old Irish politician tell a joke, in that brogue only old-time Irish politicians could pull off, about a prisoner who had his tonsils removed one December. The following December the prisoner had his adenoids taken out. A year later he was...
by Mary Bottari | Apr 3, 2013 | Blog
With Brendan FischerIn a victory for working families, New York is poised to become the largest U.S. city to require businesses offer paid days to workers. Community activists and labor leaders struck a deal with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to allow a vote on...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 3, 2013 | Financial Reform
Congressional Republicans came to Silicon Valley this week to raise money from CEOs and their companies. They were offering a flat-out quid pro quo: give us money and in exchange we will cut your taxes, block taxes on profits made from moving jobs out of the country,...
by Bill Scher | Apr 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The Rising American Electorate Sinking Together OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "The 'rising American electorate' is the name given to the core of the Obama electoral majority of the young, single women, and minorities. Democratic pundits suggest...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 3, 2013 | Blog
The “rising American electorate” is the name given to the core of the Obama electoral majority of the young, single women, and minorities. Democratic pundits suggest that this coalition essentially dooms Republican presidential prospects for the foreseeable future. ...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 2, 2013 | Blog
How much sicker does the patient have to get before the doctors stop prescribing poison? Here are some selected news stories out of Europe: New York Times: "Unemployment in Euro Zone Reaches a Record High" WSJ: "Sixth Quarter of Contraction Looms for Euro Zone" Der...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 2, 2013 | Education
America's education polices are brimming with contradiction. Schools, we're told, need more standardization, but parents need more choices, which standardization precludes. Teachers need to be held to more accountability, but entry into the teaching force needs to be...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 2, 2013 | Blog
Have our trade policies helped or hurt the country? You can look down at equations and models, or you can look up and see what is happening around you. Equations and models will tell you that "free trade" is a good thing. But if you look up and see what is happening...
by Bill Scher | Apr 2, 2013 | Blog
The Republican Party's official "autopsy" begins, "The GOP today is a tale of two parties. One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself..." But the party may need to a fresh autopsy...
by Liz Rose | Apr 2, 2013 | Too Big To Jail
Today activists in more than a dozen cities across the country are delivering more than 330,000 signatures to U.S. Department of Justice offices calling on the Obama Administration to reject Eric Holder's declaration that some financial institutions are too big to...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 2, 2013 | The Sequester
Republicans are suffering grievously from the syndrome that singer Joni Mitchell memorialized in the hit “Big Yellow Taxi” in 1970. The chorus says it all: Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone They paved paradise And put up a...
by Bill Scher | Apr 2, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Will We Stop Social Security Cuts? OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Two recent news reports indicate that the President is 'strongly considering' cuts to Medicare and Social Security in his upcoming budget, which is to be released in less than ten days...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 2, 2013 | Chained CPI
Two recent news reports indicate that the president is “strongly considering” cuts to Medicare and Social Security in his upcoming budget, which is to be released in less than ten days. The question’s been asked for four years: Why would Obama want to cut these...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
There is a big push going on to again reduce tax rates for the giant multinational corporations. See if you can guess who will make up the difference? (Hint: it will be you paying through cuts, and smaller companies that are trying to challenge the incumbency of the...
by Robert Kuttner | Apr 1, 2013 | Blog
November 5, 2014 Jubilant Republicans took back the Senate in yesterday's mid-term election, and appeared to have increased their majority in the House by about ten seats. "Barack Obama is now the lamest of lame ducks," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, now the...
by Richard Long | Apr 1, 2013 | Blog
“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power.” Ah yes, the immortal words of philosopher Antonio Montana in his seminal work, “Scarface.” Unfortunately, he has a point. Those who have the money in America do have the...
by Digby | Apr 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
“We must embrace the need for modest reforms—otherwise our retirement programs will crowd out the investments we need for our children.” President Obama, State of the union address, 2013 Is that really true? Here's Dean Baker: The Very Serious People in Washington...
by Trevor Davis | Apr 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
Sequester Nation: 1 Month In Republicans believe they are winning the sequester battle, reports Politico: "There’s been no sudden shock to the system. In fact, the economy seems on the mend, with housing starts higher than before the Great Recession. And if this...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
Media darling Rand Paul is doing his best to end progressive taxation in America. Randolph Paul, over a half-century ago, helped make progressive taxation a prime building block for America’s middle class golden age. To stop politicos like Rand, we need to remember...
by Bill Scher | Mar 29, 2013 | The Sequester
This week our federal government effectively shut down the Fung Wah bus company.. Fung Wah had a loyal customer following because it was ridiculously dirt-cheap, $15 one-way from New York City to Boston. But it was dirt-cheap because it was a death trap on wheels....
by Dave Johnson | Mar 29, 2013 | Climate, Making it in America
The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative. This initiative is about both manufacturing clean energy products and manufacturing using advanced techniques to drive energy efficiency. Both will help make American companies...
by Terrance Heath | Mar 29, 2013 | Blog
Everyone's talking about marriage this week. So it's hard to blame speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives T. W. Shannon for wanting to get in on the action with a bill to divert federal funds for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to fund a...
by Digby | Mar 29, 2013 | Blog
This is how they achieve their long term goals --- under the radar, changing the way the numbers are calculated to prove an ideological point and change our understanding of how the world works. The story says the Senate endorsed "a model called 'dynamic scoring,'...
by Bill Scher | Mar 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: We Can Have Banks That Work For the People OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "We all know the banking system is broken. It’s easy to become pessimistic in the face of corporate and political corruption, but the system can be changed. We’ve done it...
by Richard Eskow | Mar 28, 2013 | Blog
We all know the banking system is broken. It's easy to become pessimistic in the face of corporate and political corruption, but the system can be changed. We've done it before, and we can do it again. One pathway to genuine reform is "public banking": the...
