by Dave Johnson | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog, Economy
Congressman Raul Grijalva has introduced The Border Infrastructure and Jobs Act of 2011. (Fronteriza Y Trabajos 2011.) According to the Nogales International, this is a bill to "strengthen cross-border trade; modernize and expand border transportation; adequately...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog
Good Lord, what is the matter with people? There are millions of jobs that need doing, and millions of unemployed. How hard is it to figure out what to do? Next up before the Senate is an infrastructure bill. It's simple, $60 billion to repair aging infrastructure....
by Farbod Kadkhoda | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog, Economy
Just as public works projects launched by FDR put millions of unemployed people to work during the Great Depression, the Obama administration has pushed to invest billions in public works projects to create jobs for millions of today’s unemployed. But many of the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog
The House of Representatives this afternoon scheduled a vote on a three-month, stopgap transportation funding bill, as conservatives struggle to decide what sort of long-term transportation plan it is willing to put on the House floor for a vote. The alternative that...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog
Take a good look at Europe—bloody riots in Athens and Madrid, rising unemployment, spreading poverty and suicide, and a deepening recession—because the current American elite consensus bizarrely wants to drive America down that same path. Europe's miseries come from...
by | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. If you weren't convinced that anything related to the federal budget on Capital Hill is completely nuts this year, just think about these three things, all of which are happening this week: The House is putting together a...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog
The Obama Administration worked for months on a deal that would have let America's biggest banks off the hook for a crime wave of runaway mortgage fraud. All they had to do in return was pledge a negligible sum of money, to be paid by their shareholders and not...
by Bill Scher | Apr 19, 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: All Talk, No...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 19, 2012 | Blog, Education
For-profit colleges and universities have a well-deserved reputation for deceptive recruiting, low-quality programs, and sky-high prices. Now you can add union suppression to that reputation. A branch of the for-profit college mega-provider Kaplan University has...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 18, 2012 | Blog, Financial Reform
House Republicans can call their budget a "Path to Prosperity" all they want, but as far as the American Majority is concerned, it's a path to political defeat for the politicians who support it—if progressives make the right arguments in favor of an alternative that...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 18, 2012 | Blog
President Obama and many Democrats spent much of 2011 talking about deficits instead of doing something about jobs. Now, a too-close election is on the horizon (too-close because of spending 2011 talking about deficits instead of doing something about jobs) and we're...
by | Apr 18, 2012 | Blog
This is why I'm skeptical of the "lower the rates, flatten the base" comprehensive tax reform of which all the Village and the White House is so enamored. They always say that the key is to lower taxes at the same as we eliminate loopholes and get rid of all the "tax...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 18, 2012 | Blog, Minimum Wage
AT&T looks to be shooting for a double-bad award right now. They're backing the hyper-partisan ALEC, and they're trying to get their workers to take cuts while they shower cash on a few at the top. More and more, people are reacting to these kinds of attacks on We,...
by Bill Scher | Apr 18, 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: Progressives Take...
by Farbod Kadkhoda | Apr 18, 2012 | Blog
Today, as millions of Americans have coalesced to demand the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, one crusader, pledge in hand, stands in the way: Grover Norquist. In honor of tax day, protesters met in front of the offices of the Norquist-founded Americans for...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
The NLRB made a rule that makes it easier for unions to organize by speeding up the process. There is a vote coming up on a Senate Resolution to block it, with Republicans saying that giving workers rights would "hurt job growth." The danger is that enough "centrist"...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
Let's face it. The subject of taxes intimidates a lot of people, and it can be an understandably touchy subject. So we won't inundate you with charts, graphs, and tables to tell you why the rich are getting away with murder on tax day. We've got something better for...
by | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
Lookee, lookee here: David Frizzell, Indiana State Representative and 2012 National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), issued the following statement today on behalf of ALEC’s Legislative Board of Directors: “Today we are...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
Some companies are learning that supporting hyper-partisan groups can backfire when their customers find out about it. In recent weeks a number of companies are trying to distance themselves from the partisan, right-wing group ALEC before their brands become as...
by Bill Scher | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
For such a buttoned-down candidate, Mitt Romney is not very good at keeping secrets. First, he tells the conservative Weekly Standard that after losing his 1994 Senate race in part because of opposition to his plan for abolishing Education Department, he's concluded...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
President Obama's 2011 income tax documents showed on Friday that he paid a significantly higher rate than the significantly richer Mitt Romney, highlighting the titanic level of tax shirking committed by far too many 1 percenters. President Obama paid 20.5 percent on...
by Bill Scher | Apr 17, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: How "Centrist" Democrats Help Conservatives, Fail Moms OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "It's true that Mitt Romney has said stunningly insensitive things about lower-income mothers. And his 'bromance' partner Paul Ryan has cooked up a second round of...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
So a corporate Democratic lobbyist named Hillary Rosen made a gaffe about Ann Romney's resumé. So what? The reality is that Moms of all ages have been wounded by an obsolete and misguided consensus among Washington elites - a consensus that is too often mislabeled as...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 17, 2012 | Blog
Even rich people sooner or later have to drive over bridges. So why aren't the wealthy screaming about America's inadequate — and increasingly unsafe — basic infrastructure? Investing in infrastructure used to be a political no-brainer. Politicians of nearly every...
by Bill Scher | Apr 16, 2012 | Blog
Senate floor debate is happening right now on the Buffett Rule, with a procedural vote expected later today. And Republican leaders have made clear how they will justify filibustering the common sense position that all multimillionaires should pay a higher tax rate...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 16, 2012 | Blog
This past weekend, tens of thousands of people participated in what amounted to the largest effort to train progressives in nonviolent direct action in recent history. But for those who missed out in the wave of "99% Spring" training sessions, organizers today...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 16, 2012 | Blog
As I write this, little more than a 2.5 mile walk from my office (according to Google Maps), the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court are considering the arguments they recently heard regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Sometime between...
by | Apr 16, 2012 | Blog
So a reporter standing outside on the sidewalk at a Mitt Romney fundraiser overheard the pitch. And guess what? Mitt's openly telling people that his campaign is dishonest: In a speech to donors in the backyard of a private home here, the former Massachusetts governor...
by Bill Scher | Apr 16, 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 Stakes In...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 15, 2012 | Blog
The Senate is scheduled today to vote on Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's "Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012," which seeks to enshrine into law the "Buffett Rule" that millionaires and billionaires should not be paying taxes at a lower rate than the people who work for them....
by Dave Johnson | Apr 14, 2012 | Blog, Making it in America
President Obama has been pushing policies to boost American manufacturing. Democrats in Congress are pushing a package of bills under the label "Make It In America." The Obama administration's Gene Sperling gave a big speech recently describing the vital importance of...
by | Apr 13, 2012 | Blog
This story about the potential merging of the Republican Super PACs is downright chilling: Restore Our Future, the “super PAC” whose millions of dollars in negative advertising helped bury Mr. Romney’s Republican rivals, will also shift its focus to the general...
by Bill Scher | Apr 13, 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 Worst Goldman...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
The sweetheart deals just keep coming. Lawbreakers at one bank after another are let off the hook as their shareholders write a check. And then they go out and repeat the illegal behavior they promised not to do in the last settlement. It shouldn't be surprising that...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is the embodiment of today's Republican Party and everything it has come to represent. You name it, Christie's got it: Disingenuous, smug, nasty? Check. Robotic servant of the corporate class, foisting its lobbyists' prefabricated...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
This will make you long for the mythical days of "liberal media bias." A news story in The Washington Post this morning bashes the current debate around the Buffett rule in a classic case of conservative media bias. The story, in its too-cute lead-in, declares that...
by Bill Scher | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
Notice something odd about the conservative excuses for opposing the Buffett Rule? *** ...the money that would be brought in by the government through this sort of tax increase would hardly reduce the growing federal debt. The debt is too large, and the revenue would...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
Today the Western world is divided between two visions of our economic future. One vision is of austerity and the other is of growth. One is of hope and possibility, the other of despair and cynicism. The battle between these two visions has divided the United States...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
A long time ago, in an historical America, lawmakers determined a progressive tax code to be the fairest and most logical for all. The legislators asked more of those who had benefitted most from the advantages America provides. They asked less of those who benefitted...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 12, 2012 | Blog
It is no surprise that the 2013 federal budget proposal that President Obama released today is deemed "dead on arrival" in Congress. Most White House budget proposals are. That, however, does not make it irrelevant, especially in an election year that is a contest...
