by Dave Johnson | Feb 26, 2013 | The Sequester
There is no deficit problem. The deficit is down about 50 percent as a share of gross domestic product just since President Bush’s fiscal year 2009 deficit and is falling at the fastest rate since the end of World War II. Yet the Washington debate is about how and...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 25, 2013 | The Sequester
For folks in Washington, sequestration is kind of like gambling with someone else's money. (Congressional salaries are exempt, after all.) Republicans are betting that either (a) the sequester will be so painless that one will even notice it, or (b) that the sequester...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 25, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Tuesday's post, 40% Of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage, was updated with this chart: The chart shows that wages used to go up as productivity went up, but in the 1970s they decoupled. Productivity kept going up but wages stagnated. Now, here's another...
by Bill Scher | Feb 25, 2013 | Blog
MORNING MESSAGE: Washington’s Stupid, Destructive Game OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "...as this stupid game goes on – how much do we cut, and where? – Washington’s past flings with austerity madness are already carving chunks out of our economy. The GDP, which grew...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 24, 2013 | The Sequester
It’s Monday morning in America. That means we’re about to endure another week of pointless debate over the precise methods by which our federal government will impose more needless misery on the hapless population, instead of addressing its eminently fixable economic...
by Sam Pizzigati | Feb 23, 2013 | Blog
What more vivid symbol of the indignity our corporate-driven inequality imposes than the Carnival Triumph cruise ship. Thousands of people adrift, going nowhere in a nightmare of sewage and stench, while a billionaire chief exec sits far away in a courtside seat and...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 22, 2013 | Blog
I noticed something interesting in this USA Today report, Moody's cuts U.K.'s AAA credit rating, Credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Britain's government bond rating one notch from the top AAA to AA1, citing weaknesses in the economy's...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 22, 2013 | Chained CPI
Two polls released in the past 24 hours send decidedly different messages on Social Security. The lesson: Be careful what you ask. One poll released Thursday by Bloomberg seems to show that a significant majority of the public would be willing to see Social Security...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 22, 2013 | Blog
If you listen to any one audio segment talking about what is going on with the Postal Service this week I recommend this interview I did with The Matthew Filipowicz Show, (which you can also hear on We Act Radio in the DC area.) Click here to listen to the interview....
by Stan Collender | Feb 22, 2013 | The Sequester
The Clinton administration didn't play as much hardball as it could have during the 1995 and 1996 federal shutdowns because it decided that the air traffic control system was a critical government activity. Doing the opposite -- and it definitely was a discretionary...
by Bill Scher | Feb 22, 2013 | The Sequester
For years liberals were jealous of conservative Republicans for being able to fit their fundamental principles on a bumper sticker: small government, low taxes, strong military. But that Republican mantra is being sequestered before our eyes. By agreeing to last...
by Bill Scher | Feb 22, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Will Pete Peterson’s Half Billion Buy a New Recession? OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "The sequester cuts added to spending cuts and tax increases already scheduled will slow growth and cost jobs ... Why would the U.S. repeat this folly, despite...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 22, 2013 | The Sequester
The best way to reduce the deficit is to put people back to work. For proof, compare the U.S. and Spain. The U.S. has witnessed slow growth since coming out of the Great Recession in 2009. The result has been a deficit that has come down from over 10 percent of...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 21, 2013 | The Sequester
Republicans are now claiming President Obama is for big spending cuts that gut government and the things we do to make our lives better, and that Republicans are not for gutting spending. This one is almost funny, if it weren't for the damage that will be done to...
by Derek Pugh | Feb 21, 2013 | The Sequester
If House conservatives entered a beauty contest, surely not a single one would make it past the first round – not because of their looks, but because of their dialogue. Every pageant queen knows that when thrown a softball question, you take it and answer...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 21, 2013 | Blog
I was on Huffington Post Live today, talking about the story behind the recent news that the Postal Service is going to end Saturday deliver in August. I wrote about this recently in my post, The Postal Service Outrage.* This post outlines what is really going on with...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 21, 2013 | Blog
How come few if any of of the major-media articles reporting on Chinese hacking of computers in American businesses, news organizations and key infrastructure facilities mention that last year Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to do something about it? Here is a...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 21, 2013 | The Sequester
The "sequester" – mindless, across-the-board spending cuts designed purposefully to be abhorrent to both political parties – now seems likely to go into effect on March 1. If not reversed, we will see the degrading of all government services from food inspection to...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 21, 2013 | The Sequester
The "sequester" is a terrible idea. It will do terrible things to the economy and the lives of millions of Americans. It was a terrible idea from the beginning, when it was born of an ugly deal on the "fiscal cliff." It will be disastrous for the country, and cost up...
by Jeff Bryant | Feb 21, 2013 | Education
This post is republished from the Education Opportunity Network, a new online publication edited by Jeff Bryant. After the horrendous slaughter of 20 school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a heartbroken President Obama implored the...
by Digby | Feb 21, 2013 | Blog
Get a load of this, from Lisa Graves at The Nation: Fix the Debt financier Peter G. Peterson knows a thing or two about debt: he’s an expert at creating it. Peterson founded the private equity firm Blackstone Group in 1985 with Stephen Schwarzman (who compared raising...
by Stan Collender | Feb 21, 2013 | Blog
A quick post about the new Bowles-Simpson plan that was announced yesterday because that's all it deserves: It's a total nonstarter. (If you haven't heard about it, here's Jeanne Sahadi's story from CNMoney.) Bowles and Simpson didn't have enough support to get their...
by Bill Scher | Feb 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Push Beyond The Limits Of Obama’s Infrastructure Jobs Plan OurFuture.org's Isaiah Poole: President Obama’s infrastructure investment plan, released officially Wednesday afternoon, is an important step in the direction of what America needs: a...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 20, 2013 | Economy
President Obama's infrastructure investment plan, released officially Wednesday afternoon, is an important step in the direction of what America needs: a full-employment plan that puts Americans back to work rebuilding an America of shared prosperity. But it is just a...
by Thom Hartmann | Feb 20, 2013 | Blog
You've heard of the birthers and the truthers, and probably even the tenthers and the nullifiers. But now it's time to meet the Simpson-Bowlers. Over the past few years, we've heard a lot of crackpot ideas. First there was Donald Trump and his jolly gang of birthers,...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 20, 2013 | Blog
Alan Simpson, along with Erskine Bowles, represents a well-funded cadre of spokespeople who are only willing to present a narrow band of corporate- and billionaire-friendly economic policies. There's just one approach in their world, one which Simpson and Bowles...
by Derek Pugh | Feb 20, 2013 | Climate, The Sequester
The climate in Washington has been heating up as lawmakers brace for the automatic spending cuts come March 1 known as the sequester. However, the only real thing heating up is our climate, and that's where the House GOP prefers to remain silent and cold. In reality,...
by Digby | Feb 20, 2013 | The Sequester
Washington Examiner columnist Byron York is worried that the Republicans aren't as serious about allowing the sequester to happen as he'd like them to be: In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner describes the upcoming sequester as a policy...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 20, 2013 | Economy, Minimum Wage, The Sequester
In just over a week the government is probably going to enter full-scale austerity. Republicans are refusing to end tax loopholes for big corporations and billionaires, choosing to let the "sequester" occur instead. Unless something changes, and soon, $1.2 trillion in...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 20, 2013 | Blog
The group Fix the Debt has been at it again, releasing another proposal designed to divert the nation's attention to the so-called "debt crisis," while the more pressing jobs crisis and poor-and-middle-class-squeeze crisis goes unaddressed. Watch here as opponents to...
by Bill Scher | Feb 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The Simpson-Bowles Wealth-Friendly Austerity Plan OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "...this time it’s even more heavily skewed toward the financial interests of larger corporations and high-earning individuals ... Their $1-trillion-plus target for 'tax...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 19, 2013 | The Sequester
President Obama today warned that the "brutal" budget cuts in the looming "sequester" -- the latest Republican-manufactured hostage-taking crisis -- will take a "meat-cleaver" to government and cost "hundreds of thousands" of jobs. He proposed eliminating tax...
by Jeff Bryant | Feb 19, 2013 | Education
Raising the alarm that "America has lost its place as a global leader in educational attainment," a report issued today by an independent commission chartered by Congress to advise the U.S. Department of Education concludes that the "federal government must take more...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 19, 2013 | Blog
As the prospects for a “Grand Bargain” fade, additional European-style austerity on the American economy is becoming increasingly uncertain. That has meant a greater likelihood of a reappearance by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the two Washington power players...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 19, 2013 | Economy, Minimum Wage
You may have seen the charts showing how working people's wages stopped going up along with productivity gains: Update: I am adding this chart of productivity gain and wages, from EPI's The wedges between productivity and median compensation growth: This means the...
by Leo Gerard | Feb 19, 2013 | Blog
Rig the Vote is the evil opposite of Rock the Vote. Rock is the campaign by a nonprofit to increase political engagement and register young people. Rig is the campaign by the GOP to suppress political engagement and subvert balloting. The GOP rigged the vote by...
by Bill Scher | Feb 19, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The Wrecking Crew Is Winning OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "...the Republican Congress is holding the economy hostage as 'leverage' to extort deep and unpopular cuts in the core pillars of family security – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 19, 2013 | Blog
Take a look at these two sentences: “(I)f losses from the 2007- 2009 crisis were to reach similar levels (as they did in previous recessions) ... losses could exceed $13 trillion.” Government Accountability Office “You would think that any regulation that could affect...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 19, 2013 | Economy, The Sequester
Congress is taking this week off on the first of their spring breaks. The legislators will return to find only four days left before the first of the Republican Congress’ austerity bombs – the deep automatic cuts in government spending known as the sequester – is set...
by Sam Pizzigati | Feb 18, 2013 | Blog
Rising inequality, newly released data make plain, has left America's metro areas — and neighborhoods — considerably less mixed by income. Are the rich about to bid the rest of us good-bye? Our political vocabulary is changing all the time. Words that loom large in...
