Anthony Samad: Jackie Robinson showed us that blacks and whites could co-exist on the same intellectual, emotional and physical planes. America had to see it before they could “see it.”
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.
The Paul Ryan Magical Mystery Chop, Dice, and Slice Budget
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Walter Brasch: The American people broadly rejected Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in 2010. They need to now reject Ryan’s so-called new budget that proves the Republicans are nothing more than the lackeys of corporate greed at the expense of the rest of us.
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.
Republican “Bubble” — Yet to Pop
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Joseph Palermo: The rubbish that House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional Republicans keep dishing out about the federal budget shows the multimedia “bubble” that envelops the GOP and its mouthpieces is pretty durable.
The Future of Local Government
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Steve Hochstadt: When Romney and the Republicans talk about cutting back on government, they mean much larger cuts in local government spending than what has happened so far.
Native and Rural Communities Face Devastating Post Office Closures
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Georgianne Nienaber: Rural and native communities do not have reliable access to the Internet or transportation, and grocery stores, kiosks and ATMs are in short supply or non-existent. Less than 10 percent of White Earth residents have access to the Internet.
Super Committee Deadlock: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose
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Ellen Brown: Either way the super committee goes, the economy will wind up with $1.2 trillion less in the way purchasing power. The result will be to reduce demand, kill jobs, and put more people on the streets.
Does Your Congressperson Represent You — Or Israel?
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Medea Benjamin: The Congressional recess is a time for elected representatives to be home in their districts, reaching out to their constituents. So why are one in five taking a junket to Israel?
Well-To-Do Americans Getting More Benefits than the Poor
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Sherwood Ross: All the Federal welfare checks, food stamps, and unemployment benefits don’t begin to add up to the more than $1 trillion in indirect tax breaks awarded annually to America’s middle- and upper-classes.
In the Debt Ceiling Machinations Democracy Is Also Up for Grabs
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Carl Bloice: If the people who set the Tea Party in motion and sustain it want a mandatory “balanced budget” there is a democratic way of going about getting one; introduce specific legislation. They wouldn’t take that route.
Don’t Fall for GOP “Budget Crisis” Lie
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Robert Reich: Republicans are using what would otherwise be a routine, legally technical vote to raise the debt limit as a means of holding the nation hostage to their own political goal of shrinking the size of the federal government.
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?
Washington: Pay Attention to the Economy
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Robert Reich: Even for Americans with jobs, wages are going nowhere. Basically, the only employers hiring are paying peanuts. McDonalds just announced it would start hiring big time.
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.
As the Global Economy Trembles, Our Nation’s Capital Fiddles
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Robert Reich: In the past I’ve often wondered whether they’re knaves or fools. Now I’m sure. Republicans wouldn’t mind a double-dip recession between now and Election Day 2012.
War and Workers
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Lydia Howell: Whether it’s debt-ridden college graduates working as baristas or small town youth with only fast-food and Wal-Mart as post-high school career options, high unemployment keeps a volunteer military ranks full.
Why Obama Isn’t Fighting the Budget Battle
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Robert Reich: Obama won’t actively fight the budget battle if the current White House view of how he wins in 2012 continues to prevail.
Democrats Should Never Have Started Paying Ransom
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Robert Reich: Problem is, when you pay ransom once, you’re almost begging to pay it again. And that’s exactly the pickle the Obama administration is finding itself in.
Across-the-Board Cuts Needed to Avoid Fiscal Armageddon
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Ivan Eland: To keep with the bipartisan spirit after the Gabrielle Giffords’ assassination attempt and also to avoid partisan fighting over spending priorities, which will bog down and probably eventually kill any significant budget cuts, all government programs should be cut by 15 percent from last year’s budget level, including heretofore sacred defense and entitlement programs.
The Republican Strategy
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Robert Reich: The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
Cut the Real Wasteful Government Spending
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Mark Dempsey: The U.S. currently spends more than the rest of the world combined on its military but less than 2% of its budget on humanitarian aid, even if clean water would do more to promote peace.
Obama Fights Fire with Gasoline
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Robert Reich: The President has to reframe the debate around the necessity of average families having enough to spend to get the economy moving again. He needs to remind America this is not 1995 but 2011 — and we’re still in a jobs crisis brought on by the bursting of a giant debt bubble and the implosion of total demand.
The Reagan Centennial: Celebrating Reaganomics
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Joseph Palmero: If you like the way things are in the United States today — with Gilded Age levels of inequality, weak labor unions, low-wage service jobs for most of the workforce, and a public sector that’s dying on the vine — then you can thank Ronald Reagan.
Why the Republican Budget Plan Is a Hairball
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Robert Reich: What happened to John Boehner’s $100 billion budget-cutting commitment? What became of Paul Ryan’s big ideas? Where did all the roaring and raging on the right during the 2010 election go?
The State of the Union and the Federal Budget: Investing in America’s Future
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Robert Reich: Over the long term, the only way to improve the living standards of most Americans is to invest in our people – especially their educations, skills, and the communications and transportation systems linking them together and with the rest of the world (infrastructure).
Our Predictions for 2011
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Randy Shaw: The biggest story will be President Obama’s “new” relationship with Congressional Republicans; as if the president had not reached out to obstructionist Republicans from the start. We will be deluged with stories describing the “idealism and vision” of newly seated House Republicans, despite their allegiance to large corporations and goal of restoring failed Hoover-era policies.
The Tea Party Conservative Strategy for 2011
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Robert Reich: Next week starts the new Congress, and with it the Tea Party conservatives. What are they going to do about government spending? Knowing they don’t stand a chance of getting a direct repeal of the healthcare mandate, they’ll try to strip the federal budget appropriation of money needed to put the healthcare mandate into effect. This could lead to a standoff with the White House over government funding in general, and a possible government shutdown.
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