Robert Reich: The real message from voters was “Fix this stinking economy.” But Republicans have no intention of doing so. With Republicans in control of the House, forget spending increases or tax cuts to stimulate the economy.
Party Like It’s 1994
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The vast majority of Americans never supported a “privatize-and-pillage” attack on Social Security. Yet many of the Republican candidates in 2010 are on record supporting all manner of schemes to dismember Social Security.
What Is a Republican?
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Ted Vaill: The Republican Party has been scoured of all moderates (except for the two Maine female Senators), leaving the Republicans in Congress consisting of hard right, fundamentalist, often Tea Party – supporting ideologues.
The President’s Backyard Discussion of the Economy (as It Could Be)
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Robert Reich: As Obama continued his economic tour with backyard discussions on the challenges currently facing the middle class, according to the White House. Here’s an imagined version of that discussion
The Politics of Taxes
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Tracy Emblem: Bush Tax cuts have conferred the most benefits, by far, on the highest-income households – those least in need of additional resources – at a time when income already is exceptionally concentrated at the top of the income spectrum.
Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, Democrats Punt
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Robert Reich: Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm — the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.
The Defining Issue: Who Should Get the Tax Cut — The Rich or Everyone Else?
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Robert Reich: Republicans are hell bent on demanding an extension of the Bush tax cut for their patrons at the top, or else they’ll pull the plug on tax cuts for the middle class. This is a gift for the Democrats.
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.
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.
Watch “Deficit Hawks” Rush to Defend Pentagon Bloat
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Randy Shaw: The Republican Party and Democratic so-called “deficit hawks” attack any proposed defense cuts as “job killers.” Yet this alliance refused to save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, and have backed tax and spending policies that have cost the nation millions of jobs in recent years.
We’re Even Deeper in the Hole
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Robert Reich: An extraordinary number of Americans are still hurting. It’s more important than ever for the US government to step in with a larger stimulus that puts more people to work and tax cuts for people who will spend them
Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Herbert Hoover
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Robert Reich: Both Greenspan and Rubin are deficit hawks. So was Herbert Hoover and so was Hoover’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. And look what Hoover and Mellon got us into. When we least need him, Hoover is being exhumed.
Stop Calling Republicans ‘Hypocrites’
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Tina Dupuy: Espousing virtues you don’t personally have to live up to is basically the point of being a Republican.
Budget Cowardice Compounds Problem
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Steve Hochstadt: When conservative Republicans controlled Washington under George Bush, they spent government money on their pet projects with little regard for the long-term budgetary consequences. Now Republicans at the national level have made the deficit one of their major points of attack against the Democrats in preparation for the November elections.
Why We Really Shouldn’t Keep the Bush Tax Cut for the Wealthy
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Robert Reich: Restoring top earners’ marginal tax rates to what they were during the Clinton administration (36 and 39 percent) won’t inhibit their spending. That’s because they already save a large portion of what they earn, and already spend what they want to spend.
Bush Recession Comes Home to Roost
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Adam Eran: Tax cuts caused the current budget deficit, not crazy spending. Local government revenues fell 57% after Proposition 13. Even more egregious, the consume-atives™ (they do not conserve), now complain that State funding for local governments to fill that revenue hole meddles too much in local affairs.
It’s Time To Enact Health Care With 51 Senate Votes
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Robert Reich: My free advice to the President: If you want to get healthcare enacted you must use reconciliation and quickly. Host your bipartisan gab fest at the White House on Thursday. Then tell the House and Senate to get to work on putting their bills together (or tell the House Dems to enact the Senate bill and then save their disagreements for reconciliation), and tell Harry Reid you want the Senate bill on a fast track of reconciliation.
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