by Bill Scher | Apr 14, 2009 | Uncategorized
Presidential Address on Economy, 11:30 AM ET President Obama is set to deliver what the White House calls a "major address" on the economy [this] morning at Georgetown University, reports Boston Globe. Gallup and Politico show President Obama earns more trust from the...
by Sara Robinson | Apr 13, 2009 | Blog
Last week, in Part I of this short series, I talked about the three main scenarios that dominate progressive conversations about America's future: 1) Permanent Decline -- Due to Americans' native hyperindividualism, political apathy, and overweening willingness to...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 13, 2009 | Blog
We live in a sound-bite political culture. Politicos and policy makers hardly ever engage their opposite numbers in anything close to real debate. Instead, they inflict upon us carefully rehearsed talking points. And the rest of us usually don’t particularly...
by Eric Lotke | Apr 13, 2009 | Blog
Tax day is coming, and people are sad. But the problem isn’t taxes. The problem is fairness. Who pays taxes, and who gets the benefits. Today the Institute for America's Future publishes a new report that documents what we already know. The tax code is unfair, tilted...
by Bill Scher | Apr 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
Will EPA Move on Capping Carbon? FT reports EPA is about announce plans to cap carbon, which could prod Congress: "President Barack Obama’s administration is preparing to ratchet up pressure on Congress to pass climate change legislation this year by declaring its...
by Bill Scher | Apr 10, 2009 | Uncategorized
Stimulus Stimulating W. Post updates on the "slowly but surely" stimulus progress: Building repairs are underway on public housing in Imboden, Ark., and Cumberland, Ill., states across the country are receiving money to weatherize the homes of low-income residents,...
by Bill Scher | Apr 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
Big Push For Public Health Plan Option The Hill on grassroots efforts to secure a public health plan option, and efforts to undermine it: "liberal groups are waging a national grassroots campaign this week to demand that all Americans be given access to government-run...
by Roger Hickey | Apr 8, 2009 | Blog
Jacob Hacker’s 2006 book, The Great Risk Shift, helped politicians understand the economic pressures on the average family — including the rising costs and increasing loss of health insurance — or the threat. And in his Health Care for America plan for health reform,...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 8, 2009 | Blog
Democratic Senator Chris Dodd is in deep trouble. According to Stuart Rothenberg, Dodd is the most vulnerable senator up for re-election in 2010 — despite the fact that he's coasted to election easily in this deep blue state since his first Senate run in 1980.
by Bill Scher | Apr 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
Military Spending Reform Stirs Strategic Debate NYT on the fight to enact the Pentagon's proposed spending cuts: "Military analysts said the biggest lobbying campaigns would be focused on Mr. Gates’s proposed cutbacks in the F-22, the advanced stealth fighter that...
by Alan Jenkins | Apr 7, 2009 | Blog
As Obama’s first 100 days draw to a close, new research shows that addressing today’s economic crisis will require reinvesting in a bedrock American principle: Opportunity. The State of Opportunity, released last week by The Opportunity Agenda, measures our nation’s...
by Sara Robinson | Apr 7, 2009 | Blog
Terrance's last post heroically set out and engaged the two dominant scenarios about the American future that progressives seem to be wrestling with right now. These two scenarios might be described as: 1) Permanent Decline -- Due to Americans' native...
by Bill Scher | Apr 7, 2009 | Uncategorized
Gates Seeks Military Budget Reform ... But It Is Enough? NYT: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a major reshaping of the Pentagon budget on Monday, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but new billions of dollars for others, along with more...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 6, 2009 | Blog
Despite the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, top corporate executives are still taking home staggeringly more than their counterparts a generation ago. Millions of Americans last year lost their jobs, their homes, and their retirement security....
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 6, 2009 | Blog
The debate over how well President Obama did at the G-20 summit last week—and certainly the debate over who touched who first in the encounter between First Lady Michelle Obama and Britain's Queen Elizabeth—doesn't address the most important question of all: What did...
by Bill Scher | Apr 5, 2009 | Uncategorized
Will Bank CEOs Be Next? Bloomberg highlights Geithner leaving open possibility of bank CEO resignations: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he’s prepared to oust the senior management and boards of directors at banks that require “exceptional” assistance from...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 3, 2009 | Blog
"Budgets are moral documents" ~ Rev. Jim Wallis "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility… This is the price and promise of citizenship." ~Barack Obama, January 20, 2009 There are moments when the stark contrast of values between progressives and...
by Tula Connell | Apr 3, 2009 | Blog
It was tragic enough that her 11-year-old son became a quadriplegic after gunshots hit him while he was playing outside. But now Alberta, a single mother, worries every day because she can't leave her job to take care of her son. Without her job, she has no way to...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 3, 2009 | Blog
As bad as today's unemployment news is for the nation, for the African-American community it's much worse. African Americans as a group continue to bear a disproportionate share of the damage done to the economy by misguided conservative policies. It consequently...
by Bill Scher | Apr 3, 2009 | Uncategorized
Unemployment Hits 8.5% Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday AM release: " Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.5 percent ... Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.1 million jobs...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 2, 2009 | Blog
The good folks at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy would like us to know that we can gain “new insights” aplenty from the just-published second edition of their ongoing landmark research on the charitable giving of America’s rich. The...
by Bill Scher | Apr 2, 2009 | Blog
What does it mean for an unsung hero of the progressive movement to be recognized for his or her behind-the-scenes work with the annual Maria Leavey Tribute Award? The annual award will be presented at America's Future Now! convening June 1-3. While nominations remain...
by Bill Scher | Apr 2, 2009 | Uncategorized
G-20 Disagreements Persist NYT on continued disagreement over global regulation: "[France President Nicolas] Sarkozy added that tougher regulation — he has called for a 'global regulator' that would be able to reach inside the borders of the United States and other...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 1, 2009 | Blog
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t occur to me to respond to the madness of Michele Bachmann. There’s a point at which merely legitimizes mindless rantings like hers, and dignifies them are more than they deserve. However, there is a point at which those unhinged...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 1, 2009 | Blog
Last week, I wrote: "After a transformational election and at the beginning of a transformational presidency, progressives need to remember: the real transformation hasn't happened yet." The truth is, there will be a transformation. The question is what kind of...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 1, 2009 | Blog
Unlike the 19-page propaganda document House Republicans lamely called their alternative budget last week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has released a real budget with real numbers. Plus, it gets to the core of the country's fiscal problems, not with...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 1, 2009 | Blog
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has called for "sweeping regulation" of the financial community, beginning a discussion of how we restructure the banking system—in and out of the shadows—as we emerge from what Robert Kuttner calls the Great Collapse. Literally...
by Bill Scher | Apr 1, 2009 | Uncategorized
Climate Campaign Launches In Congress AP reports on new House legislation from key chairman Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey: "House Democrats outlined a plan Tuesday to cut greenhouse gases by 20% over the next decade and 83% by mid-century, proposing a speedier...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Mar 31, 2009 | Blog
There are at least three serious flaws in the financial rescue plan that the Treasury Department has put forward for the banking system that financial expert and Institute for America's Future board member Rob Johnson lays out in an interview with Jane Hamsher of...
by Bill Scher | Mar 31, 2009 | Uncategorized
President: Pass Budget to Propel Health Care, Clean Energy CNN on President meeting with House Democrats, a few who are wavering: "...the president told members, "I need your vote in passing the budget. If we do that, we will create a sense of momentum that will allow...
by Terrance Heath | Mar 30, 2009 | Blog
I missed president Obama's press conference. (Probably because it took place during the 2.5 hours of family time we have — including dinner — before the kids go to bed, and because afterwards I was either too busy catching up on reading and/or writing, or too tired to...
by Bill Scher | Mar 30, 2009 | Uncategorized
Boom Lowered on Big Auto USA Today reports on new WH demands for an auto rescue plan: President Obama will announce Monday that his auto task force does not believe the plans General Motors (GM) and Chrysler delivered in February can result in viable companies and...
by Sam Pizzigati | Mar 29, 2009 | Blog
Not everyone in the international hedge fund industry is making millions. Not everyone in the hedge fund industry right now even has a job. Amid the worst global economic meltdown since the Great Depression, hedge funds are hemorrhaging positions. An estimated 20,000...
by Terrance Heath | Mar 27, 2009 | Blog
I don't know whether to praise the Republicans or pity them. On one hand, they've been given chance after chance to "bring it," in term of ideas to address the crises we face — an act of astounding generosity, if you ask me, extended to a party that...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Mar 27, 2009 | Blog
The essence of President Obama's analysis of the right-wing "war on terror" is dead-on: The Bush administration's reframing the phenomenon of rogue extremists as a presumptively defined group of "terrorists" who can be defeated in a "war" led us down a path in which...
by Tula Connell | Mar 27, 2009 | Blog
Corporate opponents of workers' freedom to form unions repeatedly have shown they are not interested in the welfare of their employees or any of the pseudo-lofty ideals they cite while fighting the Employee Free Choice Act. Now, they've made clear they will do...
by Bill Scher | Mar 27, 2009 | Uncategorized
Budget Moves To Full Votes Next Week, Simple Majority Rule Still On Table Budget expected to pass next week. W. Post: "Voting along party lines yesterday in the Senate and late Wednesday in the House, the budget panels agreed to support a spending blueprint that would...
by Bill Scher | Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized
House, Senate Budgets Leave Key Details For Later The Hill on how Congress is trying to save fights over health care and climate for later: "Though the budget plans put forth by Obama, Spratt and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) are largely...
by Eric Lotke | Mar 26, 2009 | Blog
With all the fuss over Wall Street bailouts and AIG bonuses, one banking breakthrough is going unnoticed. Obama's proposed budget completely eliminates an unnecessary, obsolete bank subsidy: College student loans – where the subsidy goes to the bank, not the student....
by Robert Borosage | Mar 26, 2009 | Blog
Will Obama's transformative budget survive? As his press conference last night illustrated, it runs a serious risk of drowning in a swamp of cant. The budget is getting strafed by politicians in both parties for its deficits and debt. (The deficit is the annual...
