Brent Budowsky: There was no excuse for the president to shout from the rooftops about the dangers of sequester while not doing a thing to prevent it. Americans need jobs, not spin, and leaders, not photo ops.
President Obama: Please Raise My Taxes!
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Ted Vaill: The Bush tax cuts decreased the top personal income tax rate from 39.6% to 35%. A hypothetical millionaire who had $1,000,000 in adjusted gross income in each of the past 10 years benefitted by over $200,000. It is time for payback. Do it.
The Terrible Economy and the Anti-Election of 2012
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Robert Reich: The worst economy since the Great Depression and you might think at least one of the candidates would come up with a few big ideas for how to get us out of it. But you’d be wrong.
Thoughts on Tax Day 2012
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Robert Reich: I worry about the well-financed big lies that the very rich are the nation’s “job creators,” that the benefits from tax cuts on the rich “trickle down” to everyone else.
5 Right-Wing Obstacles That Must Be Overcome
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Joseph Palermo: These powerful right-wing political obstacles that must be sidelined if progressive change can have any chance of success, whether Obama is at the helm or any number of the string of future presidents he now tells us we’ll probably need.
If You Care About Keystone and Climate Change, Occupy Exxon
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Paul Loeb: If we want President Obama to make the right decision on the Keystone Pipeline and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations.
Why the Republican Crackup Is Bad for America
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Robert Reich: Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican crackup threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for America.
GOP Payroll Tax Disaster
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Brent Budowsky: As President Obama and Democrats battle during this holiday season to enact a tax cut for the 99 percent of Americans who constitute the heart of the nation, House Republicans are making a seismic political blunder reminiscent of the self-destructive overreaching of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) that rejuvenated the Clinton presidency during the 1990s.
EU ‘Shocked and Awed’ by GOP Primary Reality TV Show
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Denis Campbell: Yet the entire GOP is deluded into thinking they will regain all three branches of government with a policy of tax cuts for the rich and ignoring the 99%?
Herman Cain No More
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Steve Hochstadt: Palin and Cain are not foolish. They recognized that the elemental ideas of the Tea Party supporters could be exploited by slick slogans and political gimmicks.
REVISED: How to Avoid Being a Principled Republican on Taxes
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Robert Reich: Republican leaders are trying to get rank-and-file Republicans to go along with an extended payroll tax holiday — but by paying for it without raising taxes on the very rich.
Flat Tax a Flat-Out Fraud
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Robert Reich: All flat-tax proposals benefit the rich more than the poor for one simple reason: Today’s tax code is still at least moderately progressive. The rich usually pay a higher percent of their incomes in income taxes than do the poor. A flat tax would eliminate that slight progressivity.
Obama’s Bold Jobs Bill (Maybe)
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Robert Reich: A bold jobs plan is also good politics. With more than 25 million Americans looking for full-time jobs, the wages of people with jobs falling, and an economy on the verge of a double dip, the President has to come out fighting on the side of average people.
Obama Needs Demand-Side Solutions
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Robert Reich: Businesses are reluctant to spend more and create more jobs because there aren’t enough consumers out there able and willing to buy what businesses have to sell.
Back Toward Double Dip
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Robert Reich: The Republican lie that the nation’s long-term budget deficit is responsible for high unemployment would be laughable if it weren’t so tragically irrelevant to the current situation.
Why We Must Raise Taxes on the Rich
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Robert Reich: It’s tax time. It’s also a time when right-wing Republicans are setting the agenda for massive spending cuts that will hurt most Americans.
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.
Budget Baloney
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Robert Reich: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says in order to “save” Social Security the retirement age should be raised. The media are congratulating him for his putative “courage.” Deficit hawks are proclaiming Social Security one of the big entitlements that has to be cut in order to reduce the budget deficit. This is all baloney.
Why We Should Trade Broccoli and Asparagus for Hot Dogs and Apple Pie
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Robert Reich: The requirement that everyone purchase health insurance, or pay a fine doesn’t appeal to many Americans. They don’t like the government telling them they have to buy something. But the healthcare system can’t work without this mandate. Only if everyone buys insurance can insurers afford to cover people with preexisting conditions, or pay the costs of catastrophic diseases.
Republican Assault on Health Care Could Backfire
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Robert Reich: If successful—either in Congress or in the courts—a Republican victory could turn into a Phyrric one by opening the way to the alternative model, based on the system Americans seem to prefer: payroll taxes and public insurance.
The Big Lie
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Robert Reich: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can’t borrow as before, and must save for retirement.
California Budget Deficit Not a Real Problem
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Adam Eran: The bottom line here is that State spending disproportionately goes to lower-income people, while recent tax cuts have disproportionately favored the wealthiest taxpayers.
Tax Deal Will Normalize Bush Era
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Joseph Palermo: Whatever President Obama accomplished during his first two years in office, with most of the heavy lifting thrown on Nancy Pelosi’s shoulders, his decision to normalize the sweeping changes in American governance of the George W. Bush period will likely neutralize any lasting positive effects for Democrats.
Why the Tax Deal Confirms the Republican Worldview
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Robert Reich: As income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. Money is being used to bribe politicians and fill the airwaves with misleading ads that block all of this.
D-Day in the Class War
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Joseph Palermo: After a decade of stagnant or declining real wages, “bipartisan” schemes are proliferating to shift the burden of Washington policymakers’ own catastrophic mismanagement of the nation’s fiscal policies right onto the shoulders of working people.
The Centrists Still Just Don’t Get It
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Carl Bloice: I guess the message is obvious. The cadre of the “real tea party,” the Tea Kettle party, the truly conservatives and the austerity brigades have one thing in common: if they come to power life will become a lot harder to pubic workers, students, the elderly and a whole lot of others. Class bias speaks loud.
Why Obama Is Proposing Corporate Tax Cuts and Why He’s Wrong
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Robert Reich: The economy needs two whopping corporate tax cuts right now as much as someone with a serious heart condition needs Botox.
The Great Jobs Depression Worsens, and the Choice Ahead Grows Starker
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Robert Reich: If there was ever a time for bold government action it is precisely now. Obama should be storming the country, demanding the largest responses to the jobs emergency in history. He and the Dems should be giving Republicans hell for their indifference to all this.
Reagan v. F.D.R.
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Adam Eran: Acting together solved problems in FDR’s philosophy. Such action was the problem, in Reagan’s. Now we have experienced roughly 40 years of each. Which one produces better results?
Tax Jujitsu: Why Democrats Should Propose a “People’s Tax Cut”
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Robert Reich: Democrats should propose eliminating payroll taxes on the first $20,000 of income, and making up the revenue loss by applying payroll taxes to incomes above $250,000.
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