by Digby | Feb 8, 2013 | The Sequester
Poor Krugman. He must be tired of trying to make people understand that austerity is the wrong prescription for the economy. But he soldiers on. Thank God. This week he takes on the situational Keynesians of the GOP who are now crying about the ill economic...
by Stan Collender | Feb 8, 2013 | The Sequester
When I was much younger, I helped start a monthly breakfast meeting for a handful of inside-the-beltway budget wonks. The group has gotten considerably larger over the past three decades and its makeup – Democrats and Republicans, former House and Senate staffers,...
by Bill Scher | Feb 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Fix The Trade Deficit. Fix The Economy. OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "Yet another report is out showing how the trade deficit is costing us millions of jobs and hurting our economy. This report has specific numbers: between 2.2 million and 4.7...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 8, 2013 | Making it in America
Yet another report is out showing how the trade deficit is costing us millions of jobs and hurting our economy. This report has specific numbers: between 2.2 million and 4.7 million U.S. jobs, between 1 percent and 2.1 percent of the unemployment rate and a gross...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 7, 2013 | Blog
Think of it as the story of two antagonists. One of them was an honest Senator who came to Washington to fight corruption. The other is an arrogant banker who's so sure of his untouchability that he wore "FBI" cufflinks when he made a public appearance last month. The...
by Bill Scher | Feb 7, 2013 | Economy, The Sequester
The Wall Street Journal editorial board today is counseling Republicans that the looming across-the-board spending cuts known as the "sequester" are "unscary" and preferable to any compromise that would raise more revenue. Why should taking a meat ax to the federal...
by Ben Johnson | Feb 7, 2013 | Financial Reform
It's been 13 days since the Campaign for a Fair Settlement challenged President Obama to use the first 100 days of his term to "fix what Wall Street broke." Though Obama said his policies will, "speed relief to the hardest-hit homeowners," he has yet to act on many...
by Richard Long | Feb 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
If you are reading this, you already know the national score from the November election. The Democrats won the presidency, added two seats in the Senate, and won eight seats in the House by over 500,000 votes – while remaining in the minority. But 2012 is old news. ...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 7, 2013 | Blog, Conservatism
From the moment he was sworn in as president, what's bothered many conservatives most about Barack Obama was that he was a Black man who seemed pathologically incapable of "knowing his place." Conservatives from Peggy Noonan to (most recently) Grover Norquist have...
by Bill Scher | Feb 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Six Things You Can’t Talk About in Washington OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The short version of the CBO’s report is: Spending’s going down, but we desperately need jobs. So how did the President and Congress respond? They kept arguing about who’s...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 6, 2013 | Economy, The Sequester
Whom the gods would destroy, the old saying says, they first make mad. And there's no quicker way to become completely untethered than to read economic reports, including the latest one from the Congressional Budget Office, and then watch the political debate go on as...
by Derek Pugh | Feb 6, 2013 | The Sequester
Do House Republicans really believe they have their constituent’s best interests at heart? Obviously not, due to their receptiveness to deep cuts in vital social programs while simultaneously safeguarding the wealthiest American’s from paying more. Do House...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 6, 2013 | Economy
Washington is back to talking about deficits and not about jobs. Didn’t we just have an election? Didn't we vote to tax the wealthy, provide public services and benefits and provide people with jobs? Isn't the deficit down 50% from where Bush left it? So why are even...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 6, 2013 | Blog
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is working hard to rescue the GOP's "lost" message. You can't blame him for trying. There are, of course, several problems. Not the least of which is that it looks like GOP leadership still believes "message" and "tone" were what...
by Bill Scher | Feb 6, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Sequestering Hope OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "Moderation in a madhouse is a dubious virtue. A balanced dose of poison may mask, but doesn’t stop the damage. Yet, this is what the president was reduced to in Washington Mad Hatter Budget Debate...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 6, 2013 | Economy, The Sequester
Moderation in a madhouse is a dubious virtue. A balanced dose of poison may mask, but doesn’t stop the damage. Yet, this is what President Obama was reduced to in Washington's Mad Hatter budget debate. Here is a brief guide through the garble: 1. We can’t cut our...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 5, 2013 | Blog
Before we begin, let's take a moment to ponder the absurdity of a system in which a) for-profit corporations are allowed to call themselves "agencies"; b) the government - that is, us - gives these for-profit companies given trillion-dollar influence over the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 5, 2013 | The Sequester
After President Obama called on Congress today to postpone the deep across-the-board federal spending cuts set to kick in on March 1 in the so-called sequester, Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage responded by declaring that the sequester "should...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 5, 2013 | Economy
Government spending is We, the People doing things to make our lives better. Trade deficits are caused by billionaires and their giant corporations pitting America's working people against exploited people who have no say, so they can drive down our wages and pocket...
by Leo Gerard | Feb 5, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Oscar came to the United States at the age of 16 to work. There were no jobs for him in his native Guatemala, and he felt obligated to help support his parents. He was lured across borders by the promise of work. He believed, as so many immigrants do, that there would...
by Bill Scher | Feb 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Help The Progressive Caucus Disarm The Austerity Bomb OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "The sequester is an 'austerity bomb' of budget cuts that will hit the economy so hard that a recession is nearly guaranteed ... Today the Progressive Caucus co-chairs...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 5, 2013 | The Sequester
It seemed as if the threats and hostage-taking going on in D.C. had taken a breather. After a couple of years of crisis-to-crisis hostage-taking Republicans backed off their latest "debt-ceiling" threat to ruin the country's credit and destroy the economy. People...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 4, 2013 | Blog
Alan Simpson's the lead pitchman for a billionaire- and corporate-funded initiative to slash Social Security that has subjected the public to years of nonstop haranguing and lecturing. The lecturing's gotten crude, too, as when Simpson insisted that anyone who...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 4, 2013 | Blog, Conservatism
Like I said in the first post in this series, Obama didn't waste time talking to Republicans in his inaugural address because he didn't need to talk to them. President Obama's biggest accomplishments in his first term happened without their support and despite their...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 4, 2013 | Blog
A new app called BizVizz helps you track corporate responsibility. The app tracks corporate tax rates, government subsidies, profits, campaign donations and will soon include CEO pay and other info. It is available for iPhone now, Android soon. The AFL-CIO Now blog...
by Derek Pugh | Feb 4, 2013 | Uncategorized
Dr. Seuss a Socialist? Author Peter Dreier, addressing a packed auditorium midday on February 1 inside the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, asked, “Who here knew that by reading Dr. Seuss to your children you were spreading socialist propaganda?” One woman in the...
by Digby | Feb 4, 2013 | Blog
This is why I so love Pete Peterson and Alan Simpson for launching their generational war. It's such fun being accused of being a "greedy geezer" when this is the result of the inevitable vagaries of capitalism: somebody's going to be on the losing side at the moment...
by Bill Scher | Feb 4, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: 14 Reasons To Repeal The Sequester OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "It’s been four years since Wall Street ruined the economy, we’re nearly nine million jobs behind where we need to be, and for years our politicians have debated how much less – not how...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
It's been four years since Wall Street ruined the economy, we're nearly nine million jobs behind where we need to be, and for years our politicians have debated how much less – not how much more – they'll do about it. Now we're about to be hit with another round of...
by Sam Pizzigati | Feb 3, 2013 | Blog
. . we would have a fascinating, first-hand history of the roller-coaster first century of the modern federal income tax. Industrialist Frederick Peabody started building this manse of his dreams in 1913, the same year the income tax started biting into the nation’s...
by Jeff Bryant | Feb 2, 2013 | Education
Events in the past week showed how market-driven education policies, deceivingly labeled as "reform," are revealing their truly destructive effects on the streets and in the corridors of government. From the streets, we heard from civil rights and social justice...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 1, 2013 | Making it in America
Today's Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment report was another one reflecting a so-called "new normal" for the economy in which what borders on bad is heralded as good. Let's not be ambiguous about this. The fact that the economy created 157,000 jobs in January,...
by Digby | Feb 1, 2013 | Blog
I am on the record saying that Hagel never seemed like the brightest bulb to me but I deferred to those who insisted that he's really quite brilliant. I dunno. What I saw today didn't exactly make me change my mind, even as I have to acknowledge that the Senators...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 1, 2013 | Blog
The deficit problem is largely solved. Yet Republicans are still trying to cut us back into recession. Before the election they had an excuse: if they kept the economy down people might vote against Obama. But now? What is their game? Jobs fix deficits, and to fix...
by Bill Scher | Feb 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: SOTU Must Tackle Trade OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "The U.S. trade deficits are back up – over $1 billion a day. For all the talk about insourcing, companies have used the recession to continue to ship good jobs abroad. China and its Asian...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 1, 2013 | Blog
Despite nearly three years of growth, we have over 20 million people in need of full-time work. Wages are declining. This economy is not working for working people. To recover from this economic downturn, we requires more than a short-term stimulus and certainly not...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 31, 2013 | Uncategorized
It may be the creepiest student competition in history. Foreclosure.Com's essay contest may be trivial compared to what Wall Street's doing to undermine our educational system and manipulate our thinking, but it reflects the same warped set of values. The Campaign for...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 31, 2013 | Blog
The Campaign for America's Future 's Roger Hickey today joins a long list of leaders who are calling on President Obama to name Heidi Hartmann, the founder and president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, to be the next Secretary of Labor. "The next...
by Digby | Jan 31, 2013 | Blog
John Nichols compiles a list of quotes from some of the "Randiest" members of congress (and I'm talking about people who have the hots for a dead Russian romance novelist.) But then he features one who makes even the Rand lovin' Paul Ryan look like a casual reader:...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 31, 2013 | Blog
The GOP is perhaps just beginning to digest the message of the 2012 election; in which the demographics of their coalition can be summed up as old, white, wealthy, and male — compared to the diverse coalition that gave Barack Obama a second term, helped the...
