Robert Reich: Too many Democrats inside and outside the Beltway have ingested the deficit cool-aide that the “serious people” on Wall Street have serving for two decades.
The Millionaires Tax and Jerry Brown’s Terrorizing Tactic
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Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: Jerry Brown to resort to his terror tactic, intended to strike fear in the hearts of the public. He has told the people of California that if they do not support this new compromise tax proposal, then automatic trigger cuts will go into effect that will brutally slash the budget of public education on all levels.
The Portland Community Begins to Fight Austerity
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Shamus Cooke: Those who caused the recession — Wall Street, the big banks and corporations — must be made to pay for it. The broader population can achieve this goal only if it is united and acts collectively.
Creating Cruel and Unusual Punishment for Our Nation’s Children
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Mark Naison: The punitive, stress-filled environment that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Hop has created is good for no one’s children. But it is especially damaging to children who come to school hungry and fearful because their families are living on the edge.
An Offer to the President
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Robert Reich: So here’s the deal: We’ll reelect you. We’ll stand behind you. We’ll give you a mandate to do all this – and more – in your second term. As long as you stand behind us.
As Food Stamp Numbers Hit Record Highs, Luxury Sales Boom
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Randy Shaw: While Democrats are not nearly as zealous or extreme in their policy proposals, there is now a bipartisan consensus that budget deficits – not unemployment or poverty – are the nation’s top problem.
Republican Double-Dip: What Must Be Done
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Robert Reich: Now that we’re slouching toward a double-dip recession, the only hope is voters will tell their members of Congress to stop obsessing about future budget deficits and get to work on the real crisis of unemployment, falling wages, and no growth.
7 Myths That Drive the Debt Ceiling Debate
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Adam Eran: The metaphors that frame the current Federal budget and debt ceiling debates are completely inaccurate, and if the media coverage is any indication, the public has swallowed them hook, line and sinker, too.
We Need to Rethink the Morality of the Economy
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James Livingston: Why can’t the liberal Left answer the Right when budget deficits are the issue? Why are Democrats, Obama included, so eager to reduce spending on so-called entitlements?
Why Washington Isn’t Doing Squat About Jobs and Wages
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Robert Reich: The silence is deafening. While the rest of the nation is heading back toward a double dip, Washington continues to obsess about future budget deficits. Why?
Medicare Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution
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Robert Reich: The real problem is the soaring costs of health care that lie beneath Medicare. They’re costs all of us are bearing in the form of soaring premiums, co-payments, and deductibles.
Libyan Intervention Fraught With Risks
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Ivan Eland: United States should be careful of the signals sent when encouraging violent opposition against unfriendly dictators or when actively supporting such rebellions with military attacks.
Libya’s True Costs
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Ivan Eland: As in George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, analysis of the stated reasons for President Barack Obama’s attack on Libya lead to a lot of head-scratching.
LAUSD and UTLA: Connecting the Dots
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Leonard Isenberg: If UTLA was not in bed with LAUSD, they would aggregate the exploding number of cases against teachers for dismissal where LAUSD has violated these teachers’ California Ed.
Businesses Fear Restrictive Immigration Measures Will Drive Jobs to Other States
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Seth Hoy: As Arizona-style enforcement legislation continues to work its way through state legislatures, local business and industry groups are beginning to realize just how much these laws will affect the way they do business.
D-Day For Public Employees
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Joseph Palermo: With the aggressive onslaught aimed at public employees and their unions that Republican governors have unleashed in recent weeks, it’s long past time for politicians calling themselves “Democrats” to push aside the anti-labor elements inside their party and stand up for basic worker protections.
What’s in Your Wallet? Fiscal Notes Give States Pause Over Enforcement Laws
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Seth Hoy: As many states face budget deficits in 2011, lawmakers might be asking their constituents the same question as those Capitol One commercials, “What’s in your wallet?”
Californians Benefit from Funding Higher Education
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Tracy Emblem: California taxpayers should carefully consider the cost-benefit analysis, because when we cut public funding for these institutions, we cut our state’s economic advantage and future prosperity.
Russian Arms Control Proposals Worth Considering
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Ivan Eland: Missile defense is an expensive relic of the Cold War, which the U.S. can no longer afford given its huge budget deficits and high debt levels. Keeping the program alive are Republicans who want to preserve this white elephant to realize the grandiose “Star Wars” dream of their hero, Ronald Reagan.
CBO: DREAM Act Will Reduce The Deficit
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Andrea Nill: The increase in authorized workers would affect individual and corporate income taxes, as well as social insurance taxes. On balance, those changes would increase revenues by $2.3 billion over 10 years.
Who Is Behind the Deficit Crisis
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Shamus Cooke: Unless labor and community groups massively mobilize working people in fighting for a pro-worker solution to the deficit crisis, austerity measures — like reducing Social Security and Medicare — will be forced upon us.
Shorting Economists: The ‘Experts’ Keep Getting it Wrong
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Steven Hill: So when the authorities say “a recovery is under way” or “stimulus rather than deficit reduction” or “deficit reduction instead of stimulus,” remember: These are the same experts who are unsure of how to measure, who too often substitute ideology and partisanship for broken theory, and usually have been flat wrong in their assessments.
Forget Double Dip: We’re Still in One Long Big Dipper
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Robert Reich: It’s nonsense to think of the economy heading downward again into a double dip when most Americans never emerged from the first dip. We’re still in one long Big Dipper.
Economy Recovery Depends Upon Your Vantage Point
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Carl Bloice: Like the knee bone and the thigh bone, the foreclosure crisis is closely related to the jobs crisis. Last week the Obama administration cautioned the public not to expect any dramatic improvement in the jobless rate, largely because thousands of formerly “discouraged” jobless workers sense the situation is improving and have started back looking for work. As a result, some economists have suggested, the jobless rate may well go beyond the 9.7 percent where it stands now.
America Must Boycott Arizona
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Mario Solis-Marich: While Arizona struggles with budget deficits its’ legislature has decided to legalize racial profiling in a effort to arrest and deport undocumented families. While Arizona has been a hotspot in the immigration debate for some time the lightning rod has been Joe Arpio, the publicity starved Sheriff who is under federal investigation for civil rights violations. This week the Arizona state legislature has trumped Arpio by giving local police a statewide mandate to pull people over based on the color of their skin or their facial features.
America Must Boycott Arizona
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Mario Solis-Marich: While Arizona struggles with budget deficits its’ legislature has decided to legalize racial profiling in a effort to arrest and deport undocumented families. While Arizona has been a hotspot in the immigration debate for some time the lightning rod has been Joe Arpio, the publicity starved Sheriff who is under federal investigation for civil rights violations. This week the Arizona state legislature has trumped Arpio by giving local police a statewide mandate to pull people over based on the color of their skin or their facial features.
Why More Immigrants Is an Answer to the Coming Boomer Entitlement Mess
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Robert Reich: Sixty years later, we boomers have a lot to be worried about because most of us plan to retire in a few years and Social Security and Medicare are on the way to going bust. I should know because I used to be a trustee of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Those of you who are younger than we early boomers have even more to be worried about because if those funds go bust they won’t be there when you’re ready to retire.
A “Center-Right” Country?
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Joseph Palermo: With the hoopla at the CPAC convention and the hyperventilating on FOX News you’d think the Republicans are worried about something. With Citizens United and the Supreme Court in their pocket, and with the billionaires’ club and corporate America backing them, they’ll be back in power faster than you can say the words “President Marco Rubio.” That’s why the Democrats can’t afford to fail now.
The U.S. Can No Longer Afford Its Empire
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Ivan Eland: The Cold War is long over, and the concomitant rationale (dubious even then) for using an interventionist U.S. foreign policy to attempt to run the world is now obsolete and even dangerous in an era of blowback terrorism. Many empires throughout history have collapsed or withered away because their aspirations were too big for their wallets; the U.S. is in that perilous position now. Therefore, the United States should dramatically retract its defense perimeter, thus cutting the U.S. security budget by half and saving more than $500 billion a year.
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