by Isaiah J. Poole | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog, Economy
Members of the Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future formally released their report earlier today with a declaration that the commission created by the White House to come up with a deficit-reduction plan is poised to make the economy...
by Mary Bottari | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
While the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill did too little to address the problem of “too big to fail” banks, one of the big wins for reformers was the bill’s strong derivatives chapter which drags risky “over the counter” derivatives...
by Bill Scher | Dec 1, 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: Save Dems From...
by Zach Carter | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog
I frequently disagree with Megan McArdle, but her WikiLeaks post yesterday on struck me as simply delusional. The basic argument: megabank financiers haven’t committed any crimes, because if they had, we’d already know about it. There’s a kind of...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 1, 2010 | Blog, Economy, Making it in America
"America has spoken." It's a phrase we've heard from the right after every election — special election, run-off or midterm — following the 2008 election in which voters sent Barack Obama to the White House and Democratic majorities to both houses...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 30, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
As the clock ticks down on tonite's expiration of extended unemployment benefits for the 9.6% of Americans who are officially unemployed, the coming end of school lunch and other child nutrition programs, and the possibility of doing anything whatsoever to help create...
by Zach Carter | Nov 30, 2010 | Blog
A rather nauseating statement from a Government Accountability Office report on foreclosures: Because they generally focus on the areas with greatest risk to the institutions they supervise, federal banking regulators had not generally examined servicers’ foreclosure...
by Zach Carter | Nov 30, 2010 | Blog
Yesterday, The New York Times ran an editorial opposing a new Federal Reserve proposal to eliminate predatory lending penalties. The rule under consideration is the same obscure regulation I blogged about a couple of weeks back, and it's very encouraging to see major...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 30, 2010 | Blog, Minimum Wage
It hasn't even been a year since the Heritage Foundation placed Ireland among the top ten countries on its Economic Freedom Index. I wasn't intending to write about Ireland at the time, but any time the Heritage Foundation holds up any country as an economic example...
by Bill Scher | Nov 30, 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: A Jobs-First...
by Alan Jenkins | Nov 29, 2010 | Blog
As a frequent traveler, I can understand the outrage over new TSA security procedures. A “choice” between an ultra-revealing body scan, a scandalously intrusive pat-down, or not traveling by air, ever, is no choice at all. And for those of us who travel...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 29, 2010 | Blog
In a stunning public display of just who our government works for and who it does not work for, unemployment checks for people out of work longer than 26 weeks run out tomorrow night. Congress, meanwhile, is caught up in a debate over extending a special tax break for...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 29, 2010 | Blog
In the news: President Obama has proposed to freeze the pay of all federal workers. Demonstrating again his unique negotiating technique of giving concessions before negotiations begin, without asking for reciprocal concessions from the other side (also known as...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 29, 2010 | Blog
Are they there to govern, of just destroy? As Washington works through its "lame duck" session and prepares for next year's new Congress, there are signs that the government-haters are preparing some serious hating on government itself. The country needs to get...
by Bill Scher | Nov 29, 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: Conservative...
by Sam Pizzigati | Nov 28, 2010 | Blog
Over across the Atlantic, reformers have begun a year-long probe that has the fire-power — and credibility — needed to challenge the sacred cows of the global executive compensation status quo. U.S. corporate profits, the Commerce Department reported last week, have...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 26, 2010 | Blog
Here is MY deficit-reduction plan. This plan does not reflect the views of anyone but myself -- and maybe half the population. Unlike deficit plans from the "serious people" in DC, this one doesn't annihilate the poor and gut Social Security and the middle class while...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 26, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
There are lots of things to be thankful for in this world, and I've got a pretty good list: A loving family, the glittering splendor of the cascading galaxies, Eddie Hinton's guitar solo on the Staples Singers' "I'll Take You There" [1]... you know, the usual stuff....
by Dave Johnson | Nov 25, 2010 | Blog
Conservative just hate Social Security. The Social Security program is an example of government at its best. It demonstrates We, the People taking care of and watching out for each other. It works, it is efficient and effective, and people love it. For their war...
by | Nov 25, 2010 | Blog
Apparently the Fiscal Commission believes that only the very poorest (those with career earnings in the range of $10,771) depend upon Social Security's benefits for security in old age--because they are the only ones the Commission spares from cuts. The middle and...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 24, 2010 | Blog
Recently I wrote that the deficit-cutting projects and media campaigns sponsored by billionaire Pete Peterson all "focus on the same narrow band of options" that "reflect far-right positions," but nevertheless are usually described in the media as "moderate" and...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 24, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Let's go through it one more time. A simple truth: You can't get the right answer if you ask the wrong question. The furious debate over how best to cut the deficit illustrates the point. The debate is about how we best enforce austerity. How do we bring the federal...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 24, 2010 | Blog
If there is one thing that Tea Party members hate, it's government health care. I guess that's why so many of them want the government to keep away from their Medicare. (You may have seen ad after ad last month blasting Democrats because Obamacare "cut Medicare." See...
by | Nov 24, 2010 | Blog
I met Chalmers at his home in San Diego when he kindly agreed to make a film for the Campaign for America's Future conference because he was unable to be there in person. We spent the morning talking and filming, and then shared lunch together. Johnson,...
by Bill Scher | Nov 24, 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: Ireland --...
by Sam Pizzigati | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
The national statistics on the economic and social gaps that divide us, suggests new research two years in the making, actually understate how unequal American life has become at the more local level, where people live it. “The United States today is a country...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
Recent remarks by a would-be Social Security cutter highlight the unspoken agenda behind proposals that claim to "fix" the program by cutting benefits, all in the name of "deficit reduction." Social Security doesn't contribute to the deficit. But it can help decrease...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
China claims it originated or bought technology for their high-speed rail projects, and didn't steal it. This is a Google translation -- Refuting the State Intellectual Property Office of China's high-speed rail: China news agency, Chengdu, November 22 (Xu Yangyi) -...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Does it even matter what the public wants anymore? I guess that's a rhetorical question these days because more and more obviously the answer is no. It matters what the plutocrats want, and they know how to get what they want. Public opinion is "engineered" or at...
by Zach Carter | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
The Republican Party's newfound political assault on Ben Bernanke is a grim reminder of the actual conservative economic agenda for the next two years. The midterm elections taught Republicans a destructive lesson: With Democrats in power, the worse the economy gets,...
by Bill Scher | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
Yesterday, the White House issued one of those -- eek! -- regulations. As part of implementing the health reform law, our federal government established a new rule to stop profiteering by private health insurance companies. As the AP reported, the regulation "calls...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
Today's Washington Post has punch two of a one-two punch. Punch one was the Simpson/Bowles "plan" to cut Social Security, cut middle-class tax breaks and programs (and dramatically cut taxes on the rich.) Punch two is pushing this plan hard with headlines claiming...
by Leo Gerard | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
Real men, real human beings, with feelings and families, fought and died at Gettysburg to preserve the Union, to ensure, as their president, Abraham Lincoln, would say later, that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the...
by Roger Hickey | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
Picture everyone sitting around the table this Thanksgiving and the cranky old uncle lobs a political hot potato at you designed to push the conversation to a shouting match. He may be an inflammatory liberal or a conservative grouch, he may even try to have a Tea...
by Bill Scher | Nov 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: Who Makes 250K?...
by Sara Robinson | Nov 23, 2010 | Blog
Progressives have suspected for years that working- and middle-class Americans vote for the GOP because they have a deeply unrealistic idea about their real chances of becoming wealthy. We've joked that working stiffs vote for tax cuts and other goodies for the rich...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 22, 2010 | Blog
Watch Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of the White House deficit commission, on Morning Joe, conflating Social Security and the budget deficit. They have released their own “plan,” separate from what the deficit commission might release, allow the press...
by Bill Scher | Nov 22, 2010 | Blog
The White House deficit commission is expected to vote Wednesday, Dec. 1 on a final report of recommendations. And it will likely not be much different than the draft released by its co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Bowles said last week: "We aren't going to...
by | Nov 22, 2010 | Blog
The following was originally published at TPMCafe and CEPR.net In recent days several center-left blogger/columnists have suggested that progressives should be happy to cut a deal now on Social Security and other issues related to the budget. The argument is that the...
by Bill Scher | Nov 22, 2010 | Blog, Economy
Republicans were triumphant in this year's election in part by arguing they would do a better job at creating jobs. But what have they been prioritizing since they won? What are they actually proposing to do now? Here are the biggest actions Republican have taken...
