by Zach Carter | Dec 8, 2010 | Blog
Kevin Drum gives a pretty thorough analysis of President Obama’s open assault on the mainstream Democratic Party at yesterday’s press conference, and declares that “programmatic liberalism is dead.” I think that’s more than a little exaggerated, but regardless, it’s...
by Bill Scher | Dec 8, 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: Stop The Next Bad...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 7, 2010 | Blog
The deal is done - regarding tax cuts and unemployment benefits extensions — and while we all have a stake in it, most of us won't get anything of long-term value out of it. Least of all the 99ers — the people who have received benefits for 99 weeks, or...
by Bill Scher | Dec 7, 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: Is It Worth It?...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 7, 2010 | Blog
The deal is down. Liberals irate. The press trolling for firebrand denunciations of the president. So it is worth noting the obvious that could otherwise be lost in the noise. This was a negotiation in which the wealthiest Americans were represented by a unified...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Dec 6, 2010 | Blog
While much of the media focuses on who wins and loses on Capitol Hill in the battle over extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the numbers of people who are the ultimate losers—unemployed people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits—keep...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 6, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
I don't hate Jamie Dimon. He's smart and hard-working, and undoubtedly wants to believe that his work contributes to society. But his bank continues to harm millions of Americans, and his political activism is helping an entire industry pilfer and endanger the...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 6, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform, Making it in America
Are the Main Street Tea Party members getting "played" by Wall Street and big-corporate billionaires? There is a big, big, big difference between what the regular members and the big-money funders expect. If Tea Party candidates get elected will they do what their...
by A.J. Albrecht | Dec 6, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
On Monday, The International Trade Commission (ITC) unanimously voted to recommend that President Obama impose tariffs on the import of Chinese tires for three years. The new administration will have until September 17 to decide what, if any, relief to provide based...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 6, 2010 | Blog
I appeared on the Rick Smith Show this weekend to talk about the Deficit Commission report (it's technically not an official report, but it's being treated like one anyway), and what its recommendations would mean to a lot of people in this country. Rick, who's based...
by Bill Scher | Dec 6, 2010 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The Real Cost Of $60B In Tax Cuts OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage:"David Leonhardt in the NYT does a good service by laying out simply what $60 billion a year in tax cuts -- the amount that will go to those earning over $250,000 if the Republicans get...
by Sam Pizzigati | Dec 5, 2010 | Blog
The National Archives has just released a once-secret report that helps us understand how incredibly much we today coddle the wealthiest among us. Our political order in the United States, a host of observers have noted over recent years, tends to tilt toward the...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 4, 2010 | Blog
The Presidential Deficit Commission has issued its report -- sort of -- and the president has a problem. Like Dr. Frankenstein in the Mary Shelley novel, he built a creature from discarded parts and it took on a life of its own. And like its fictional counterpart,...
by Bill Scher | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
When health care reform was signed into law, President Barack Obama correctly described it as "biggest deficit reduction plan since the 1990s." In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projected it would save more than $1 trillion during the next two decades. This...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
9.8%! It’s still all about jobs. It's still an emergency. And the DC elite still don’t get it -- or don't care. They give us a "deficit commission" not a jobs commission. They've got it nice while the rest of us have it not-so-nice. Maybe we should move the Congress...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
There are reports that the Korea Free Trade Agreement is nearly concluded. Unfortunately the problems with the labor portions of the Bush-negotiated agreement were not addressed, which means we might have another NAFTA-style, job-killing, Wall Street-abetting,...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
It appears that the US and Korea could not reach agreement in time for President Obama's visit to Seoul for the G20 meeting beginning today. Washington Post, U.S., South Korea fail to reach free-trade deal,, Negotiations over a U.S.-Korea free-trade agreement faltered...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog, Economy, Making it in America
You’ll be hearing a lot about a Korean Free Trade Agreement in the next few days. Negotiators are finalizing last-minute changes to the Korea Free Trade Agreement before President Obama arrives in Seoul Thursday for the G20 and to meet with President Lee Myung-bak....
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog, Economy
The way a lobbyist argues for or against anything today is to say it will create or cost jobs. Prohibiting lawsuits against giant corporations that harm people creates jobs. Making oil drilling safer costs jobs. Tax cuts for the rich creates jobs. Just getting rid of...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
Trade is good. Honest, free and fair trade brings prosperity to everyone involved. Unfortunately the kind of one-sided, exploitative trade deals that have been negotiated in the past might have made a few elites very rich in the short term but threaten to impoverish...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
David Brooks is always a good marker of establishment conventional wisdom. Today, in a column grandly entitled, “A Tax Reform Vision,” Brooks celebrates the growing beltway consensus on tax reform, suggesting that a bipartisan accord could be built around lowering tax...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (“Deficit Commission”) was charged with coming up with a plan to reduce the budget deficits and accumulated debt caused by tax cuts for the rich and military spending increases. It was supposed to come up...
by Bill Scher | Dec 3, 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: What Doomed...
by Zach Carter | Dec 3, 2010 | Blog
The data from the Federal Reserve audit is full of frightening revelations about U.S. economic policy and those who implement it. When Wall Street went off the rails in the fall of 2008, policymakers told the public we had a certain kind of problem, knowing all along...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
Tomorrow the Deficit Commission votes on its draft proposal. That proposal will not "pass," according to the charter that created the Commission. But if it gets enough yes votes, it's likely to trigger a chain of events that will cost the President and his party...
by | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
In general, macroeconomic policies cut two ways on inequality — one via effects on economic activity, which if favorable, can reduce inequality by creating more jobs and raising wages, and the other through effects on the stock market, which can make inequality worse...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
Let's face it. Nothing about the economic crisis is funny. Nothing about America's 9% unemployment rate, 14.8 million unemployed, or 6.2 million long-term employed is funny. And there's nothing mildly amusing about the 2 million Americans whose unemployment benefits...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
The following was originally published at Politico. "The era of deficit denial is over," crowed former Sen. Alan Simpson, the garrulous co-chair of President Barack Obama's deficit reduction commission. But the debate about what is to be done has just begun....
by Mary Bottari | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
Thanks to tremendous public pressure and the recently passed Wall Street reform bill, the U.S. Federal Reserve was forced to reveal the details of its emergency bailout of the financial sector for the first time yesterday. From a quick review of the data now available...
by Leo Gerard | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
The GOP has adopted the Ken Lay principles – that is obfuscation, false statements and feigned innocence. Republicans are obfuscating about the real reason for their opposition to extending unemployment benefits, the way Enron CEO Ken Lay concealed the truth about...
by Bill Scher | Dec 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Beware Simpson-Bowles "Revenue Neutral" Tax Reform OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "Alan Simpson and his investment banker co-chair Erskine Bowles recommend as part of deficit reduction lowering tax rates, particularly those on the top. ... they...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
We all despair of the chump Charlie Brown. Each fall Lucy promises to hold the football. Charlie trusts her. And --bam -- she pulls it away at the last moment each time. Well, the clownish Alan Simpson, dyspeptic co-chair of the president's deficit commission, is...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog
Robert Reich pleads with Democrats, and President Obama to give Americans a clear explanation about why the economy stinks. He gets it right. The newly liberated leadership of the Democrats in the House would be wise to make this their message and their agenda: Quiz:...
by Zach Carter | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
Just starting to parse through the Fed audit data. Looks like the Primary Dealer Credit Facility is predominantly a bailout for Citigroup and Bank of America. More to come . . . UPDATE: Looks like in the early days the Primary Dealer Credit Facility was almost...
by Bill Scher | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
On Wednesday, the White House deficit commission is expected to take a final vote of the recommendations of its co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. Then the battle for public opinion really begins. As the Wall Street Journal reported today, there is little...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog, Economy, Financial Reform
The
by Richard Eskow | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
It's come to this: At a strange and bitter press conference this afternoon (where they even accused their opponents of "racism"), the co-chairs of the Presidential Deficit Commission laid out a proposal that literally meets the dictionary definition of extremism....
by Isaiah J. Poole | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
The co-chairs of the White House National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform released its deficit-reduction ideas earlier today, and a range of progressive leaders are united in saying its proposals, particularly on Social Security, should be rejected...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
The co-chairs of the Presidential Deficit Commission released the final draft of their report today, and it's now scheduled for a Friday vote by members of the Commission. We're being told that it's a fairer and more reasonable document than its predecessor. It's...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
In the news: Congress debates extending an extra tax cut for the rich, Obama's "deficit commission" proposes tax cuts to cut the deficit. Both of these assume tax cuts help the economy. But do they? What is the record? In this morning's public hearing of the National...
