by Robert Borosage | Aug 29, 2012 | Blog
What defines Mitt Romney's Republican Party? In his keynote address to the Republican convention, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie argued that this is the party of "hard truths," ready to tackle our debt and deficits. Washington lobbyist and former Pennsylvania...
by Alan Jenkins | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog
Now that the presidential tickets are set, it’s time for the candidates to get specific about problems and solutions critical to our economic recovery and future prosperity. Along with job creation, they should start with Home Opportunity—the cluster of housing,...
by | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog
Wow. They just don't give a damn: “Our most effective ad is our welfare ad,” a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O’Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. “It’s new information.”… The Washington Post’s “Fact...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog, Economy
What does the (draft) Republican Platform say about creating jobs? The meat of the plan is to do the infrastructure projects they have been blocking! The Record Let's look at the jobs proposals in the (draft) Republican platform. But first for context: In the last...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog
Mitt Romney's out there with yet another whopper. Since Obama became President Senate Republicans have filibustered almost everything, but Romney said, "He got every piece of legislation he wanted passed, and it didn’t work." Wow. Adam Green, co-founder of the...
by Leo Gerard | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog
The rich, those born sucking silver spoons like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, really are different from the middle class. The wealthy grow up and live their lives wrapped in security. That’s what gives them the arrogance to organize a posse to hold down a fellow prep...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog
"He who trusts in his riches will fall … He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind" - Proverbs 11 When Hurricane Gustav tormented Republicans during their 2008 convention, one of the cancellations caused by the storm was a speech from outgoing...
by Bill Scher | Aug 28, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: Why Is God...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 27, 2012 | Blog
Since forever, the Republican message is STILL "Dems take your money and give it to black people." Doesn't change. Doesn't have to. It's OUR fault. Since Forever I am not young. I remember when Nixon campaigned with his racially divisive "Southern Strategy." Nixon...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 27, 2012 | Blog, Minimum Wage
What do Marie Antoinette and one Bill Koch have in common? If you'd asked me that a few days ago, I'd have answered "Not much." That is, until yesterday, when I about Bill Koch's private Western town. There's a new town in Colorado. It has about 50 buildings,...
by | Aug 27, 2012 | Blog
Written with Michael Winship. Originally posted at Bill Moyers.Com. It’s just astonishing to us how long this campaign has gone on with no discussion of what’s happening to poor people. Official Washington continues to see poverty with tunnel vision – “out of sight,...
by | Aug 27, 2012 | Blog
This isn't as far-fetched as it seems: Working from makeshift offices at a hockey arena here, a team of Romney advisers, producers and designers has been staging and scripting a program for the Republican National Convention that they say they hope will accomplish...
by Bill Scher | Aug 27, 2012 | Blog
There is already plenty of attention being paid to MSNBC's Chris Matthews telling the Republican Party chair to his face that the Romney campaign is playing the "race card" by running dishonest ads about welfare and making birth certificate jokes. But Matthews is not...
by | Aug 27, 2012 | Blog, Economy, The Sequester
The author is the Director of Public Policy for POGO (Project On Government Oversight) The big Pentagon contractors have been trying to scare lawmakers, the public, and the troops with dramatic claims that there will be massive job losses. For nearly a year, these...
by Bill Scher | Aug 27, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: A Maximum Wage...
by Sam Pizzigati | Aug 26, 2012 | Blog, Minimum Wage
The national leader of one of America's feistiest unions is aiming to expand the economic fairness debate. He's proposing a cap on incomes at the top that rises only if incomes at the bottom rise first. With Labor Day fast approaching, what better time to reflect...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 24, 2012 | Blog
Mitt Romney (or someone) writes (or writes for him) in Murdoch/Al-Waleed's Wall Street Journal, that lessons he learned at Bain Capital will help him turn the country around if he is elected President. Is he right? In WSJ: Mitt Romney: What I Learned at Bain Capital,...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 24, 2012 | Blog, Too Big To Jail
Every day we rise and tell ourselves this will be a good day, free of that unique combination of predation, self-pity, mediocrity and disingenousness which characterizes the modern bank executive. And every day somebody proves us wrong. Today it's William B. "Bill"...
by Bill Scher | Aug 24, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: The Bogus Brief...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 23, 2012 | Blog
Move over John Derbyshire. Make room for Kevin D. Williamson, the latest conservative to astound those of us who naively thought there was little the right-wing could do anymore that would leave us staring in open-mouthed disbelief. Sure, Republican Missouri Senate...
by Bill Scher | Aug 23, 2012 | Blog, Financial Reform
This week's Public Policy Polling poll showing Republican Sen. Scott Brown opening up a 5-point lead over Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect Elizabeth Warren will certainly be a wake-up call to her campaign and her supporters. But will she, and we, draw...
by Bill Scher | Aug 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: A New Strategy For...
by Roger Hickey | Aug 23, 2012 | Blog, Economy
The following is a short version of the visionary report "Prosperity Economics" by Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil, endorsed by Campaign for America's Future, AFL-CIO, Center for Community Change, Economic Policy Institute, Leadership Conference on Civil and...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 23, 2012 | Blog
Last week the Obama administration announced a new National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown, Ohio. The Institute will work on promoting new 3D printing technology. 3D printing is a key strategic industry that is changing the way many products...
by | Aug 22, 2012 | Blog
Well, if you ask the National Republican Senatorial Committee … Good morning – Just a quick background update on the situation in the Missouri Senate race. While much of the press coverage has understandably focused on the statements by Republican leaders...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 22, 2012 | Blog, Economy
Next week the Republicans hold their convention. They will supposedly focus their message on the economy. But after four years of an agenda to block jobs and economic growth so they can campaign on complaints of no jobs and no growth, can they offer anything that...
by | Aug 22, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. How do you oppose the stimulus bill but demand that some of the money you didn't ant the government to spend be spent in your district? As Michael Grunwald explains over at Swampland, just ask House Budget Committee...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 22, 2012 | Blog
She's baaaaa-aaaack! The Romney/Ryan campaign has resurrected Reagan's "Welfare Queen." It would be laughable, if they weren't serious, if the stakes weren't so high, and if there weren't so likely to get away with it. "There's a woman in Chicago," Ronald Reagan told...
by Bill Scher | Aug 22, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Does Romney's Tax Plan Get The Money From Mortgage Interest Deduction? OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "For Romney's tax plan to work, with its promise to be 'revenue neutral,' he has to find big money somewhere to make up for the rate cuts. The...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 21, 2012 | Blog
The Romney strategy of offering few or no details about anything lets him be everything to everyone, while denying anything that could be a problem. So we are all left to guess. It's the case with his tax returns -- and its the case with his tax plan. Romney says his...
by | Aug 21, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. It's time to have an honest talk about "uncertainty" -- the B.S. complaint by Wall Street and corporations that they don't know what's going to happening in Washington; don't, therefore, know what to do; and are sitting on...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 21, 2012 | Blog, Economy, Minimum Wage
As the Republican convention approaches, “Etch-a-Sketch” Mitt Romney continues to reshape himself. Overnight, he’s for allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest, after being against it. Now he’s the savior of Medicare after being the scourge of the entitlement...
by Bill Scher | Aug 21, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: Good News For Paul...
by Leo Gerard | Aug 21, 2012 | Blog
GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney foolishly revived the dust up about his income tax secrecy last week. He claimed he paid at least 13 percent, an assertion easy enough for him to prove by releasing his tax documents. But he’s refusing to do that. He called the...
by Bill Scher | Aug 20, 2012 | Blog
At a New Hampshire town hall today, Paul Ryan said that if we "cut spending" will avoid European austerity, and America will be the "port in the storm of the global economy." In other words, if we adopt radical austerity now, we won't have radical austerity later. As...
by Jeff Bryant | Aug 20, 2012 | Blog, Education
Just like you can count on "Back to School" season cranking up retail sales this time of year, you can also count on it bringing on a new volley of criticism aimed at school teachers and their unions. Leading off the charge this year was an op-ed written by ex-NBC...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 20, 2012 | Blog, Climate
There has been a recent flurry of propaganda attacks on wind and solar energy by oil-and-coal-backed conservatives. A vitally important tax credit to help build a renewable energy industry in this country expires at the end of this year without Congressional action,...
by Bill Scher | Aug 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: Bain's LABSCAM...
by | Aug 20, 2012 | Blog
Originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle. Money laundering. Price fixing. Bid rigging. Securities fraud. Talking about the mob? No, unfortunately. Wall Street. These days, the business sections of newspapers read like rap sheets. GE Capital, JPMorgan...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 20, 2012 | Blog
The estimable E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post writes today about the utterly dishonest debate the Romney-Ryan campaign is waging. On Medicare, the current centerpiece, Ryan and Romney simply lie. This is a subset of a dishonest debate on how to cut the deficit:...
