Progressive Media Advocates
Brent Budowsky: Let’s add a “repatriate prosperity” provision that would require participating global companies to increase the size of their American workforce by a designated amount, within a designated window, such as six months, in order to receive the tax holiday.
Robert Reich: In truth, the most important variable explaining the rise and fall of tax revenues as percent of GDP has been the business cycle, not the effective tax rate.
Craig Williams: The best cure for California’s budget problems might be a big statewide tax reform campaign based on the commercial property tax legislation proposed by the progressive organization Cal Tax Reform (CTR) and sponsored by Assembly member Tom Aminao.
Seth Hoy: One of the biggest myths perpetuated by restrictionist groups is that the roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants currently living in the U.S. use a variety of public services yet paying nothing in taxes.
Tina Dupuy: Republicans claim to be the arbiters of fiscal discipline, but their record says otherwise. The Ryan Plan, which passed the House, was like a cat burglar writing the charter for the neighborhood watch.
Adam Eran: Historic tax reductions on the wealthy, and the Wall-Street-Fraud recession, have reduced public revenues, and this reduction now makes otherwise too-popular-to-cut programs vulnerable. But are such cuts really necessary?
Walter Brasch: “There are four million words in the IRS Code,” said Marshbaum. “Lower-class and middle-class Americans get a few thousand of those words. The rest of the code is a roadmap to help the wealthy and their corporations avoid paying taxes.”
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.
Walter Brasch: If 60 million Americans want war, and the cost is a mere $300 million a week, then each supporter would have about $5 per week deducted from his or her paycheck.
Robert Reich: Republicans offered Democrats two more weeks before the doomsday shut-down. Democrats countered with four. Republicans held their ground. Democrats agreed to two. This is what passes for compromise in our nation’s capital.
Stanley Kutler: There is a kernel of truth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s claim of a “budget shortfall” of $137 million. But Walker, a Republican, failed to tell the state that less than two weeks into his term as governor, he, with his swollen Republican majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature, pushed through $117 million in tax breaks for business allies of the GOP. There is your crisis.
Robert Reich: Public budgets are in trouble because revenues plummeted over the last two years of the Great Recession. They’re also in trouble because of tax giveaways to the rich.
Mark Dempsey: After having reduced taxes without reducing spending, the Republicans can now get Jerry Brown and the California Democrats to do the politically unpopular work of terminating programs that would otherwise be too popular to touch. It’s clever, but hardly non-partisan.
Steve Hochstadt: The voters spoke in November: They picked Quinn and a tax increase over Brady and no new taxes. One reason is that Brady could not identify for voters where he would cut much spending. The opponents of taxes did not propose any reasonable alternative to raising taxes to solve Illinois’ debt crisis.
Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: The only alternative available to working people that offers real prospects for success are mass mobilizations in the streets and strikes – the kind of militant struggles that scored so many gains in the 1930s.
Norman Solomon: More than two weeks after President Barack Obama announced his decision to make a tax-cut deal with Republican leaders, the shock waves continue to buffet many Democrats and others who are stunned by the grim implications.
Robert Reich: When it comes to protecting the fortunes of America’s rich (mostly top corporate executives and Wall Street) and maintaining their strangle-hold on the political process, Senate Republicans, along with some Senate Democrats, don’t budge.
Robert Reich: The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure.
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.
Tracy Emblem: Let’s give the new legislation which provides tax breaks and job incentives for “small businesses” time to work before blindly accepting McConnell’s argument that allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire would hurt small businesses. We must start closing the deficit gap.
Robert Reich: By extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, shrinking the estate tax, and freezing discretionary spending (on everything except defense), Obama’s leaving almost nothing for education and infrastructure.
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.
Robert Reich: In political terms, a strong stand enables the President to clearly demonstrate who’s side he’s on (the working and middle class that’s still bearing the brunt of this lousy economy) and who’s side the Republicans are on (the powerful and privileged who brought much of this on, and who are now doing just fine).
Tom Degan: The debt that the United States has incurred in the last ten years is now at a level where it’s probably insurmountable. The only solution (and that’s assuming there is a viable solution) will involve taxes – decades of serious taxation.
Steven Hill: In return for their taxes, Europeans get valuable support systems like childcare, senior care, university tuition and healthcare. Americans must pay exorbitantly, out-of-pocket, for these support services often going without because the cost is prohibitive.
Tom Hayden: Persistent waffling on dates for American troop withdrawals has eroded any remaining patience with the Obama White House among peace activists and voters, a majority of whom favors a timeline for US troop withdrawals.
Joseph Palermo: Wouldn’t it be something if the Bin Ladens of the world funneled untraceable cash into Republican candidates’ coffers because they know they can count on the GOP to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two of their greatest recruiting vehicles?
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.
Randy Shaw: Obama could regain young people’s support by lowering student loan rates, enacting immigration reform and rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, but time—and his political capital—is running out.
Steve Hochstadt: The women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s finally made an issue of fathering. If women were going to get out of the house and into the workplace, men had to change their roles, too.
The Frying Pan: A successful mayor and council cannot be satisfied with merely coping as issues arise, but must be able to anticipate and define the city´s needs for the next four years. As our newly elected leaders prepare for their roles, we´ve asked writers to share their thoughts about what lies ahead for Los Angeles.
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