by Dave Johnson | Jun 21, 2011 | Blog
A government agency is blocked from functioning by obstructionist, party-over-country, Republican Senators. The President makes recess appointments to get government functioning again and the agency starts doing its job. The result: working people are protected. Today...
by | Jun 21, 2011 | Blog
It looks like it won't only be the Republicans who take "Obamacare" apart piece by piece. This article in the Washington Monthly gives us a glimpse behind the curtain of bipartisan corruption --- and spells out why making "deals" with industry is no deal at all: As it...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 21, 2011 | Blog
In the first post in this series, I noted that in the "Path to Prosperity" — which Republicans approved unanimously — Rep. Paul Ryan cited Medicaid as one of the biggest drivers of our national debt. The Republican budget formerly known as the Ryan budget,...
by Bill Scher | Jun 21, 2011 | 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: Conservatives...
by | Jun 21, 2011 | Blog, Economy, Minimum Wage
With unemployment at a near historic high in the United States, could you imagine any American company bringing in foreign workers to work for them below the minimum wage and with no benefits? Most people would say no. But can you imagine those same Americans forcing...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 20, 2011 | Blog
So far from God, so close to the Republican National Committee When some Simpsons characters took refuge in the local church after a hurricane, the church marquee read "God welcomes his victims." With that invitation, Reverend Lovejoy (an underrated Simpsons character...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 20, 2011 | Blog, Economy
The ProgressiveCongress.org and the Congressional Progressive Caucus launched the Speakout for Good Jobs Tour in Minneapolis Saturday. They will hold Speakout events in 11 cities across the country. This is a major opportunity to build public awareness that leads to...
by Bill Scher | Jun 20, 2011 | Blog
Conservatives are in a froth because the National Labor Relations Board attorneys are merely pursuing a legal case against Boeing for shifting plans for a new factory to a state with weak labor laws to blunt the ability of its unionized to go on strike. Last week,...
by Bill Scher | Jun 20, 2011 | 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 Fight-Back...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jun 19, 2011 | Blog
Amid fierce fiscal austerity, a borough in London is doing battle to level up the poor and level down the rich. Imagine if a borough in New York tried something as ambitious. In the United States and Britain, the developed world’s two most unequal major nations, you...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 18, 2011 | Blog
An email the Campaign for America's Future sent to its supporters a few weeks ago with the subject line "How Would You Take Back The American Dream?" kicked off a lively debate on a listserv of progressive activists. What do you mean when you say "the American dream"?...
by Daniel Marans | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
AARP claims that their openness--read: support--for cuts to Social Security benefits is based on an understanding that tax increases alone will not close the program's modest funding gap. But that's just not true. If we made millionaires and billionaires contribute to...
by Roger Hickey | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
The front page of today's Wall Street Journal features an article [Key Seniors Association Pivots on Benefit Cut] reporting that AARP "is dropping its longstanding opposition to cutting Social Security benefits." The piece is based on a conversation with AARP policy...
by | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
September marks the 26th anniversary of the introduction of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, the much- maligned deficit reduction process that budget historians and analysts generally consider to have failed miserably. What few people remember about that law is that it...
by | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog, Economy
Originally published at UnemployedWorkers.org. What do you call a bill that would let states seize all of the federal funds now allocated for unemployment insurance benefits to long-term unemployed job-seekers, and use those funds to bailout corporate taxes and state...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
This is a class war and I welcome it because they have more to lose than we do and we’re going to kick their asses! - Leo Gerard I attended Thursday's Netroots Nation panel, After Citizens United: Combating Corporate Power in Elections, The Supreme Court's decision in...
by | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
Don’t know about the rest of you 50+ folks, but it’s time for me to burn my AARP card. Have to start by saying that I like and respect many people who work for and serve as volunteers for AARP. An article by Laura Meckler in today’s Wall Street Journal reports that...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
If we grow apart as we grow economically, three psychological researchers show in a landmark new study, we will never grow more happy. Why haven’t Americans become happier over the past 50 years? Economists have trouble with that question. America's average...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
There's reason to believe that the White House held back on helping struggling homeowners because it was afraid of a Tea Party backlash. That was exactly the wrong response, politically as well as economically. Bolder and more effective action would have weakened the...
by | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
Don’t you just love it when a Senator nails the issue of poverty in American with a single sentence? That is just what Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) did last Thursday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s when he said: “The federal government is the only...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
TAKE ACTION. Tell Vice-President Biden: No Bad Deals. No Cuts to Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. Budget-cutting can be a bloody business, depending upon where and how deeply one cuts. It can be a deadly business too. Not for the budget-cutters, though. That's...
by Bill Scher | Jun 17, 2011 | 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: Mr....
by Roger Hickey | Jun 17, 2011 | Blog
Send The Vice-President A Message: Stand With The American Majority. Reject Republican Cuts To Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans are holding the economy hostage again, threatening to destroy America's credit rating so they can get brutal cuts in...
by Josh Rosenblum | Jun 16, 2011 | Blog
Retiring U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-No Shame, TX) today unveiled a plan to steal Social Security from Americans by cutting their benefits and lying to them about it. In a release and fact sheet with more holes than a piece of swiss cheese in front of Dick...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 16, 2011 | Blog, Making it in America
I am participating on a panel tomorrow at Netroots Nation, Revitalizing Manufacturing: The Road to Renewed Job Growth. Please click here to submit questions for the Q&A session. The panel: FRIDAY, JUNE 17TH 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM The prospects of the U.S. innovating our...
by | Jun 16, 2011 | Blog
Like all of you I'm sure, I'm deeply concerned about the revelations that emails were exchanged between Anthony Weiner and a porn star and what that all means for the future of the Republic. (Thankfully, she's finally weighed in on whether or not he should resign for...
by Roger Hickey | Jun 16, 2011 | Blog
The Campaign for America's Future released the following statement after joining with several progressive allies for a successful petition drive calling for a rapid military withdrawal from Afghanistan. *** The Campaign for America’s Future, MoveOn.Org, CREDO, Brave...
by Bill Scher | Jun 16, 2011 | 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: Buy American Jobs...
by Leo Gerard | Jun 15, 2011 | Blog, Economy, Making it in America
Efforts by those who never want to hear someone say, “Bye-bye American manufacturing,” converged coincidentally to make June Buy American month. First, at the forceful urging of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Smithsonian on June 8 opened an all-American-made...
by | Jun 15, 2011 | Blog
Workers’ share of U.S, national income is collapsing: David Frum asks: Two questions for the Republican presidential candidates: 1) Is this a problem? 2) If yes, what can be done about it? I'd want to ask the Democratic presidential candidate he same thing. But I'm...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 15, 2011 | Blog
Fear never goes out of fashion. Once again Republicans are dealing in fear instead of facts, and why not? It's worked in the past, and a nation that's locked in seemingly permanent recession and high unemployment may be in the market for some scapegoats. Monday's...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jun 15, 2011 | Blog
One of the three 'serious' candidates for the 2012 Republican White House bid says the tax cuts for the rich he's proposing will expand America's 'entrepreneurial' class. What does history say? Last week, in a “major policy address,” GOP Presidential...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 15, 2011 | Blog
This weekend I went to the San Mateo (CA) County Fair. My wife’s dance troupe (pic here) and students were performing. (They were on a stage next to and immediately before the pig races, near the funnel cake stand.) I got there early and before they started I walked...
by Bill Scher | Jun 15, 2011 | 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: Demand A...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 14, 2011 | Blog
Conservatives are masters at manipulating public expectations for their ends, and they are doing it to particularly disastrous effect when it comes to what we should expect on jobs. The result is that we are being persuaded to accept the unacceptable. That is the tide...
by Robert Borosage | Jun 14, 2011 | Blog, Economy, Minimum Wage
"It's an employer's world," said Rebecca Penny, a 55-year-old widow who was laid off over a year ago from her job at a Chevrolet plant in Tennessee. "I lost my benefits the night I was laid off. Now I can't afford medicine. And I can only find minimum...
by | Jun 14, 2011 | Blog, Making it in America
That’s the word I’d use to describe the recent leadership of both Political Parties on American jobs, and especially factory jobs. The only development on Monday more depressing than President Obama’s trip to an outsourcing manufacturer in North Carolina was the...
by Bill Scher | Jun 14, 2011 | Blog
Yesterday, I proposed CNN ask the Republican presidential candidates, "Why didn't the Bush tax cuts create jobs?" CNN's debate moderator John King asked that precise question to Tim Pawlenty in last night's debate. Pawlenty had no answer. JOHN KING: Where's the proof...
by Robert Borosage | Jun 14, 2011 | Blog
Yesterday on MSNBC in a segment titled "Is Obama Too Focused On Wall Street," Robert Borosage responded to questions about the President's pursuit of campaign contributions from Wall Street, and if it necessarily has to impact our economic policy. Visit msnbc.com for...
by Bill Scher | Jun 14, 2011 | Blog, Economy
Tonight is the first Republican presidential debate with all the top contenders planning to attend. And there is only one question I want to see asked: Why didn't the Bush tax cuts create any jobs? Every candidate on tonight's debate stage not only continues to...
