by Alan Jenkins | Jan 10, 2011 | Blog
Congratulations! You’re expecting a baby. There are a million things to do, from getting the nursery in order to buying a car seat and finding a pediatrician. Also, start documenting your family tree. Dig up your passport, and your parents’ passports, and maybe their...
by | Jan 10, 2011 | Blog
As I have previously warned--and I hope I'm wrong--President Obama seems on the verge of needlessly cutting America's most valued social program and the one that best differentiates Republicans from Democrats. This is part of a vain effort to appease deficit hawks in...
by Roger Hickey | Jan 10, 2011 | Blog
The terrible shootings in Arizona should make us all get beyond the sound-bite wars. Will the media let us? As soon as the story leaked that President Obama was about to appoint former aides to President Clinton, Bill Daley and Gene Sperling, to key positions (Chief...
by Bill Scher | Jan 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: A Moment Of...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
What's the worst thing about Darrell Issa's debut as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee? It could be his relentless, Gloria Swansonish, "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille" self promotion. It might be his manic insistence that he'll conduct "hundreds" of...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
If you saw this morning's Progressive Breakfast, you know that Senator Kent Conrad has an op-ed in Politico, "Priority no. 1: Pass long-term budget plan," in which he proposes steps to do something about the borrowing caused by the tax cuts for the rich that he just...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
There are a lot of complicated issues out there, ones that require detailed analysis and serious number-crunching. The Senate will be debating its own filibuster procedures over the next three weeks, which will give us plenty of time to dig into the numbers. But the...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
Did you think that, having regained control of the House, the GOP will stop being the "party of No" and start governing, or at least doing something about the challenges facing the country? Think again. The 112th Congress will not be the "Do...
by Bill Scher | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog, Minimum Wage
Today, the new House Republican leadership will spend two hours on the House floor reading the Constitution. This will be one of many acts from the House Republicans over the next two years which will not create any jobs. But I am hopeful that those doing the reading...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
The Tea Party membership is being set up for yet another huge betrayal by the DC Republican establishment. The members had very clear expectations that specific spending cuts would fix the government's budget problems. The Republican leadership is betraying them by...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
The new monthly job numbers are out. They are a little bit better than they have been, but they are not very good. We added very few jobs but the unemployment rate went down. This is a function of a really bad economy in which people are so discouraged they aren't...
by Bill Scher | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
In the past year, conservative congresspeople have claimed to oppose nearly everything on the grounds that it would increase the deficit -- even when legislation was formally estimated to either cut the deficit (health care reform), have no impact on the deficit...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
If you like your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, courts, roads, trains and the rest of what government does for We, the People, then you should pay attention to this. Early next year the Republicans will demand severe cuts to everything or they will allow the...
by Bill Scher | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
The House Republican leadership has announced it will enact two things immediately upon taking control of the House this week: a new "CutGo" rule to require revenue offsets for any increases in spending, and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act health reform law. The...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
Can we compete with China's wages? Does government interference and regulation hold us back? Are our unions keeping us from being competitive? Do we need to lower our standard of living in a race to the bottom? You might be surprised to learn that Germany pays higher...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
The new Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is proving that the financial services industry invested well when it spent more than $200 million on the 2010 elections, including more than $106 million on Republican candidates. Rep. Spencer...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
Last Friday the White House partied like it was 1999. It was fascinating to see Bill Clinton back at the podium, and it's a pleasure to see a master of the medium at work. But the Administration's latest moves raise serious concerns about the future of Obama's...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
The Washington Post ran a story how hard it is for a family making only $250K a year. Just who could a story like this be written by and for? How many ways does this story mislead its readers? If you want to write about hardship write some stories about and for the...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jan 9, 2011 | Blog
Corporate America is working feverishly behind the scenes to smother a new federal mandate, enacted last year, that just might revitalize the drive to roll back excessive executive pay. Sometimes lobbyists — even the most perfectly coiffed — mess up....
by | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog
Why are we beating around the bush? Yes, there are a lot of good benefits in the health care law that would be lost if it were repealed. But there's also a basic truth: health insurance saves lives. A study by doctors from the Harvard Medical School calculated that...
by Bill Scher | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog
Instead of the House Republicans breaking their own proposed "CutGo" rule to offset the cost of all spending increases, they have chosen to carve a multi-billion dollar loophole, specifically exempting the $143 billion 10-year cost of repealing health care reform. By...
by Bill Scher | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog
The House Republican leadership is scrambling to defend the obliteration of its own budget rules, as it prepares to pass repeal of health reform without offsetting the $143 billion 10-year cost, let alone the $1 trillion 20-year cost. Incoming House Majority Whip Eric...
by Bill Scher | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog
The Congressional Budget Office today released its preliminary analysis of the Republican health reform repeal bill, and the 10-year increase to the deficit is higher than previously assumed: $230 billion instead of $143 billion. That's because the 10-year window now...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." - Eric Holder, United States Attorney General Ed. Note: The second half...
by Bill Scher | Jan 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: Where Are The...
by Robert Borosage | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog
Bill Daley is an experienced corporate lobbyist, a skilled strategist, and a smart operator. That’s presumably why he was hired. But it is bizarre to say that “few Americans can boast the breadth of experience that Bill brings to the job,” as the president did. Or to...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog, Financial Reform
Wall Street is widely despised by an American public that lives with the consequences of bank behavior every day. The President and the party were once widely trusted by the public to rein in the banks and save the economy, but that reputation's been tarnished by the...
by Bill Scher | Jan 6, 2011 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: The "Undo...
by Bill Scher | Jan 5, 2011 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: Issa Goes...
by Leo Gerard | Jan 5, 2011 | Blog
Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged while sporting gay attire would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican. The GOP is, after all,...
by Bill Scher | Jan 4, 2011 | Blog
The conservative response to the Congressional Budget Office analysis that health care reform will cut the deficit more than $1 trillion over the next two decades is simply to call the nonpartisan analysts liars. For some reason, when the CBO was harshly criticizing...
by Bill Scher | Jan 4, 2011 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: "Gut Or Shut" --...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog, Minimum Wage
Over the weekend Daily Kos ran a front-page story, America needs an industrial policy, making the point that Germany is doing well because their government understands that a national policy of promoting manufacturing drives the economy and jobs. There is a simple...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog
Conservatives have a legislative agenda for 2011 that will hurt your ability to get or keep a job, your neighborhood's ability to recover from the recession and this country's ability to regain its footing in the global economy. To keep conservatives from enacting...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog, Economy
Earlier this week, I made a case for an investment agenda for America. Now, a report from The Working Poor Families Project has underscored the urgent need for an economic agenda based on investing in the American people and preparing our workforce not just to compete...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog, Financial Reform
Van Helsing: "The strength of the vampire is that nobody will believe in him." America's debt to Wall Street has soared since 1945 - and although the banks were rescued at public expense, the public's been left holding the bag for the recent drop in housing prices:...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog
We have to stop letting conservatives get away with the line that state and local governments, as well as corporations, are in trouble with their employee retirement plans because greedy employee unions extracted promises from their employers that they could not keep....
by | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog
Not content to merely lobby for cutting Social Security pensions, the other day Peter Orszag put disability insurance on the menu as well, saying that people with disabilities should be working during this economic downturn.(It's bad for their character if they don't,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog
President Obama spent much of Wednesday huddled with a group of business executives, an effort The New York Times said afterward "went a long way to reset the tone of the relationship between Mr. Obama and corporate America" in the eyes of the corporate chieftains who...
by Mary Bottari | Jan 3, 2011 | Blog
With a $4.7 trillion bailout under their belts and no harm done to their billion-dollar bonuses, don't expect Wall Street bankers to be chastened by the 2008 financial crisis. Below we list eight things to watch out for in 2011 that threaten to rock the financial...
