by Bill Scher | Jan 3, 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: Job #1 Is Jobs...
by David Shuster | Jan 2, 2011 | Blog
Coming soon!
by Sam Pizzigati | Jan 2, 2011 | Blog, Economy
A widely overlooked provision in last month's tax cut deal is going to speed even more wealth to America's Paris Hilton set. Brace yourselves, young people. In 2011, you figure to face a real stinker of a year. Those of you attending America's budget-strapped public...
by Robert Borosage | Jan 2, 2011 | Blog
Nicholas Kristof has important piece in NYT, entitled Equality, A True Soul Food He summarizes the striking work that shows how corrosive extreme inequality is not simply to society, but to the health of individuals themselves.Extreme Inequality, he writes, feeds a...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 1, 2011 | Blog
Happy New Year! We've created a morning-after slideshow at The Huffington Post: "Choose the Year's Most Absurd Comment From a "Financial Wizard." Head on over there and cast your vote. The competition's fierce. (link)
by Richard Eskow | Dec 31, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
Bankers. The red carpet's still being rolled out for them in Washington, but if there's a stain on it they'll pout for days. Jason Linkins documents the latest set of cheap white whines from very wealthy white men. (Discrimination lawsuits are a routine part of their...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 30, 2010 | Blog
The right's propaganda machine begins with a simple narrative, repeats it endlessly, and then ties current events to the narrative to drive the point home. The corporate/conservative right are currently working a narrative that public employees and their unions are...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 30, 2010 | Blog
If you haven't already noticed, there is a corporate/conservative campaign underway to convince the public that public employees are living high on the taxpayer's dime and should have their pay and pensions cut back. Even during the holidays this attack does not let...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 28, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Beware of conservatives bearing gifts. Today in the Washington Post, former Bush policy advisor, Michael Gerson echoes a growing chorus of conservatiuve pundits offering up "Social Security reform" as "the answer to Obama's problems." The advice is illogical on its...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 28, 2010 | Blog
Historians of the future will look back on this year as a turning point in the drive to dismantle a popular, self-funded program by convincing people that it's a "big government" initiative that "costs too much." Ours will be remembered as a time when superstition...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 24, 2010 | Blog
In his press conference today President Obama said the economic focus is no longer saving the economy from crisis, but "jumpstarting" it to make a dent in unemployment. He listed education as one of the pillars of that effort. Later in the press conference he talked...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 23, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
Peter J. Wallison has a bright future ... as a surrealist author.. He and the other Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission tried to undermine that group's work by attempting to ban phrases like "Wall Street" from its final report. Now he's trying to...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 23, 2010 | Blog
I’ve just read the “preport” issued by the Republican gang of four minority on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC). The preport was a publicity stunt designed to embarrass the Commission, and discredit its report before it is issued. The effort became...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 23, 2010 | Uncategorized
Editor's Note: Progressive Breakfast will be on hiatus during the winter break, starting December 24th. We'll be back in the new year, on January 3rd, rested and ready to deliver the news and views you need to affect change in 2011. Until then, we wish you and yours a...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 23, 2010 | 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: Blaming The...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 22, 2010 | Blog, Minimum Wage
Speaker Nancy Pelosi will relinquish the gavel to the perpetually tanned, lachrymose Republican leader John Boehner when the new Congress convenes next January. It will be four years after that January 4, 2007 day when she "broke the marble ceiling" and became the...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 22, 2010 | Blog
Blame the unions, blame the unemployed, blame loans to the poor, blame the government... As income and wealth increasingly go to a few at the top public anger is directed at the economy's victims. I am in a clinic all day participating in a medical study, so I was...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 21, 2010 | Blog
The country’s huge debt was caused by tax cuts for the rich and increases in military spending. But debt-cutting recommendations from the D.C. Elite never suggest restoring taxes on the rich and cutting military spending. Go figure. Instead they suggest cutting the...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 21, 2010 | Blog
Last week, when the president's tax cut deal with Republicans was all but done, I wrote that the Democrats and progressives risk moral failure if we do not meet the moral obligation the tax cut deal would create. Now the deal is well and truly done — passed by...
by Bill Scher | Dec 21, 2010 | 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: It's About Social...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 21, 2010 | Blog
Are there "good" companies and "bad" companies? No, there are just companies, and companies don't have moral characteristics any more than a chair does. Here is something to understand about the things companies "do." If we LET a company "do" something, all companies...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 20, 2010 | Blog
The Democratic base seems to have coalesced around two opposing realities: Either President Obama is inept - if not an enemy of all things good and true - or he's doing the best any human being could possibly do. Both of these seemingly opposing positions lead to the...
by Bill Scher | Dec 20, 2010 | Blog
Having won the right to take control of one body of Congress, conservative Republicans are in full "what the American people voted for" mode -- in which a politician presumes the "American people" believe whatever crazy thing rattles around in his or her mind. Funny...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 20, 2010 | Blog
There are rumors that President Obama is going to ask for cuts in Social Security in his State of the Union speech. We have 4 weeks to stop him. People, we can stop this. Tell The President: Stand Up To The Hostage-Takers! No Social Security Cuts Last week in Obama to...
by Bill Scher | Dec 20, 2010 | 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: An Investment...
by Sam Pizzigati | Dec 19, 2010 | Blog, Economy
They came, they saw, they took it all. Welcome to the world where thieves have no honor and those most honored — with lavish rewards — hone their talents hammering the rest of us. Hard times can be good times — for the aggressively avaricious. Where others see pain,...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 18, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Uh-oh. David Brooks is offering the President advice again. Since we're told that Brooks is one of President Obama's favorite columnists, there's always the chance that his latest idea will gain traction in the White House. Brooks is smart, and he's a good salesman,...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 17, 2010 | Blog
Congress passed tax cuts for the rich and cut the estate tax way down, adding $800 billion to the deficit and placing Social Security on the chopping block. No one will have predicted what’s coming next year in the name of deficit reduction: they are going after...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 17, 2010 | Blog
Well, it's official. The president will sign the tax cut deal into law this afternoon. The 99ers are getting nothing for Christmas, while the White House and the Tea Party congratulate themselves on extending tax cuts that don't create jobs or stimulate the economy,...
by | Dec 17, 2010 | Blog
So they passed the tax cut compromise. And the fundamental unfairness of it sticks in the craw: the nation is under a great deal of economic stress, yet the Republicans just stuck a gun to the heads of people in distress and said "give us our tax cuts or the country...
by Roger Hickey | Dec 17, 2010 | Blog
Republican hostage-takers got President Obama to go along with their tax cuts for the wealthy by threatening to raise taxes on the middle class and blocking even modest stimulus funds for our struggling economy. Now the Republicans have identified their next hostage:...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 17, 2010 | Blog, Economy
From naked capitalism.com: "Given its degree of inequality, if New York City were a nation, it would rank 15th worst among 134 countries with respect to income concentration, in between Chile and Honduras. Wall Street, with its stratospheric profits and bonuses, sits...
by Bill Scher | Dec 17, 2010 | 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: On Social...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog, Economy, Making it in America
The president kicked up his "corporate charm offensive," meeting for hours with 20 CEOs yesterday. Characteristically, he started with an apology for not "finding the right balance" in addressing business. "We want to be boosters," he said, because "when you do well,...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog
(This is the second in a two-part response to the attempted Republican sabotage of the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission. Part One is here.) sabotage [ˈsæbəˌtɑːʒ] n. 1. the deliberate destruction, disruption, or damage of equipment, a public service, etc., as by enemy...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
A sleeper cell of four Republicans struck the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this week, escalating what had been previously been a campaign of covert obstruction into an overt act of sabotage. That act should be seen for what it is: A "denial of service attack"...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog
It should come as no surprise that as a result of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the economic insecurity of average Americans is at an all-time high. What should be shocking is the insistence of conservative policymakers on heightening that...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog
Already passed by the Senate, the House probably votes today (late addition -- maybe not) on extending the tax cuts for the rich and permanently cutting the estate tax to a very, very low level. It is hard to convey just how dispiriting this is to progressives who...
by Mary Bottari | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog
Are you one of the lucky ones? Have a good job, live in a nice neighborhood, enjoy your cozy home? Think foreclosure only impacts the reckless or the unemployed? Think again. George Mahoney worked and saved and built his cozy, colonial-style home in Lynnfield,...
by | Dec 16, 2010 | Blog
Roger Simon, Politico: Don't like the way wealth is distributed? Then you can join congressional Democrats and grump about it, or you can get some wealth for yourself. I've been waiting for some real push back on this "inequality" stuff from the well-off Villagers....
