Brent Budowsky: Ryan famously tried to employ Catholic theology on behalf of his budget austerity against the poor, and was quickly forced to retreat as the absurdity of this view became obvious.
Simpson-Bowles Austerity Gang: Go Home
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Richard Eskow: Simpson and Bowles, those two hired pitchmen for budget-cutting hysteria, are still hawking an economy-killing product called “austerity economics,” a product that’s designed to benefit their wealthy patrons at everybody else’s expense.
A Pledge for Mr. Waxman
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Richard Eskow: The president and his fellow Democrats have agreed to a series of reckless budget-cutting measures instead of fighting for jobs and protecting the social contract, which has deepened and lengthened the lingering recession.
Local Fights Against Austerity Growing
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Mark Vorpahl: Between sequestration and the billions of cuts to social programs that Obama is pushing, it is evident that the economic policies of both major parties are not intended to promote a recovery for working people.
Sequestration: Budget Balancing on the Backs of the Majority
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Jamala Rogers: The Congressional Budget Office estimates sequestration will cost around 750,000 jobs in total. Economic experts project a huge, negative impact on the economy. Once again, Congress proves that it knows nothing about job creation or economic development.
California NOW Falls in Behind Eric Garcetti
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Patty Bellasalma: We are the National Organization FOR Women not OF women. We fight for gender equity and women and girls’ empowerment. That is the qualifying core value that candidates and members alike must display.
Why This Is the Worst Recovery on Record
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Robert Reich: We’re now witnessing what happens when all of the economic gains go to the top, and the rest of the population doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going.
Opposition Grows Fierce to Austerity Cuts
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Mark Vorpahl: This latest budget crisis poses the question of “who do Portland’s elected leaders serve, the city’s majority of working class communities or big business and the wealthy?” So far, while the 99% have been suffering with all the belt tightening, Portland’s 1% have been left to grow fat.
Excessive Military Spending Crushes the American Dream
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Randy Shaw: Tax Day has passed with little attention to the chief reason U.S. students are overwhelmed by debt, millions are homeless, children go to bed hungry and our public transit infrastructure is being destroyed — the allocation of half of every discretionary dollar to the military.
That’s Where the Money Goes
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Lawrence Wittner: Although studies have found that the United States ranks 17th among nations in education, 26th in infant mortality, and 37th in life expectancy and overall health, there is no doubt that it ranks first when it comes to war.
The Upside of Taxes
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RJ Eskow: Today’s new corporate-sponsored cost-cutting craze is merely the latest policy designed to enrich a powerful few at the expense of the many, and today’s anti-tax agenda is being used to make sure it succeeds.
Double Whammy: Grim Jobs Picture, Horrible “Grand Bargain”
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Carl Bloice: The Congressional Progressive Caucus budget that is far more sensible and humane than anything the White House is proposing. But since the “serious” people in Washington don’t cotton to it, the serious mainstream media won’t give it the time of day.
Time to Bell the Obama Cat?
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Norman Solomon: Whether or not Obama’s vicious assault on Social Security is successful, it has already jolted an unprecedented number of longtime supporters. It should be the last straw, suffused with illumination.
It’s the Jobs, Stupid
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Brent Budowsky: Obama needs to contemplate the possibility that his legacy will be “the jobless president.” He should fight to become “the jobs president.”
It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors
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Ellen Brown: When Americans realize that the alternative is to have their ready cash transformed into “bank stock” of questionable marketability, moving failed mega-banks into the public sector may start to have more appeal.
Have 147 People Hijacked the Global Economy?
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RJ Eskow: And when the next crisis comes, “147 people” will react to it exactly the same way they reacted to the last one. You can almost hear them now, can’t you? You can’t blame us, they’ll say. Nobody could’ve seen this coming. How do we know that?
Mad About Money
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Peter Laarman: The very wealthiest Americans, whose share of income and wealth has shot up astronomically for the past 25 years, have somehow gotten a huge number of other Americans to buy into the idea that there isn’t enough money. And that therefore we should cut lifeline benefits that go to poor children and sick people and old people and veterans.
A Safe and a Shotgun or Publicly-Owned Banks? The Battle of Cyprus
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Ellen Brown: The push to confiscate the savings of hard-working Cypriot citizens is a shot across the bow for every working person in the world, a wake-up call to the perils of a system in which tiny cadres of elites call the shots and the rest of us pay the price.
Fixing the Economy’s Real Problem
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Robert Reich: The President needs to deliver the same message to the public, loudly and clearly. The biggest problems we face are unemployment, stagnant wages, slow growth, and widening inequality — not deficits. The major goal must be to get jobs and wages back, not balance the budget.
Double Whammy: School Reform Amidst Austerity
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Mark Naison: the most tragic thing about this kind of austerity is that school districts have shown they are far more willing to use increasingly scarce funds on testing and evaluation rather than art, music, sports, gym, and school counselors and librarians.
The Top 12 Political Fallacies of 2012
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Richard “RJ” Eskow: Our nation was gripped by so many fallacies and delusions in 2012, the whole Mayan calendar end-of-the-world thing didn’t even make the list.
Fiscal Cliff: Time to Call Their Bluff
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Ellen Brown: The fiscal cliff has been said to be holding Congress hostage to conservative demands, but the real hostages are the debt slaves of our financial system.
The GOP’s Crippling Fascination with Neo-Hooverism
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Charley James: Democrats generally, and the President specifically, must forget trying to do deals with a party that has no interest in making one and shout from the rooftops that it’s time to spend money and put America back to work.
Why Austerity Economics Hurts Low-Wage Workers the Most
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Robert Reich: encouraged by the economic recovery and perhaps also by the election returns, low-wage workers have started to organize.
Stop Obsessing About the Budget Deficit
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Robert Reich: I wish President Obama and the Democrats would explain to the nation that the federal budget deficit isn’t the nation’s major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn’t be our major goal.
Will Dems Tax Rich to Avoid Fiscal Cliff?
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Shamus Cooke: Literally the day after the election a sudden “urgency” gripped the nation: the imminent danger of the so-called “fiscal cliff” — the national automatic tax increases and spending cuts due in January.
New Mandate, New ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Math
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Richard “RJ” Escow: The voters have asked President Obama and his fellow Democrats not to “shirk a fight” over economic issues. We look forward to seeing the democratic process unfold as a much-needed fight against economic injustice is played out in the public arena.
And Now: Forgive Us Our Debts!
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Peter Laarman: Just a word about the Next Big Thing: the coming lame duck session and the “fiscal cliff” and the prospect of a not-so-grand bargain in which Democrats will yield yet more ground to Pete Peterson’s baleful “austerity for you but not for me” proposals.
Presidential Debate Wednesday, Jobs Report Friday
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Robert Reich: The biggest election news this week won’t be who wins the presidential debate Wednesday night. It will be how many new jobs were created in September, announced Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Manchurian Taxman: Grover Norquist’s Murder/Suicide Pact
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Brad Parker: Does it not follow then that Grover Norquist, at his core; is actually the Manchurian Taxman sent to rend America asunder in the name of Chaos and not the flag bearer of Conservative piousness and the entrenched Plutocracy?
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