Berry Craig: We are getting closer to that “more perfect union” the constitution was supposed to make us. Far more people enjoy “the blessings of liberty” cited in our national charter than they did in Washington’s day.
Now the Battle Over the Debt Ceiling
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Robert Reich: The White House’s and Democrats’ single biggest failure in the cliff negotiations was not getting Republicans’ agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
Let’s Pick on the Unemployed Some MORE!
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hanks to Republicans in Congress and their friends in state capitols, the chronically unemployed – five million who have been out if work for 26 weeks or more – are losing another strand in the already razor-thin lifeline that has kept them afloat. As The New York Times reported Tuesday when House and Senate Republicans agreed [...]
$1.4 Billion to Houston from Immigration Legalization
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Michele Waslin: If all unauthorized workers in the Houston region were legalized and they and their employers paid Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and federal income taxes, additional tax revenues would exceed $1.4 billion.
Who’s the Scrooge?
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Steve Hochstadt: The calls to flatten the income tax, to eliminate welfare payments, and to repeal regulation of industry are about going back to an earlier America, where the rich and powerful could use their advantages without hindrance.
The Rebirth of Social Darwinism
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Robert Reich: Today’s Republicans are not conservatives. They’re regressives. And the America they seek is the one we had in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century.
Useful Examples for Occupy from the Great Depression
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Mark Naison: The “grunt work” of organizing Depression Era protests — at least until 1936 — was done by radicals who for the most part eschewed, or de emphasized electoral politics.
The Rise of the Regressive Right and the Reawakening of America
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Robert Reich: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other tribunes of today’s Republican right aren’t really conservatives. Their goal isn’t to conservative what we have. It’s to take us backwards.
In Memory of the GOP
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Tom Degan: It’s interesting to speculate what Lincoln and Roosevelt would make of their party today. It’s not much of a stretch to say that the both of them would be just a tad dismayed to see that it has been overtaken by half-wits and crazy people.
Where Have All the Jobs Gone?
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Judith Stein: If President Obama wants the United States to manufacture again, he must change foreign and domestic priorities. The United States is more committed to maintaining its open market than to providing jobs for Americans.
Obama Looking Like a Champ
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Alvaro Huerta: To be a real champ, Obama now needs to end the tax cuts for the rich, withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and get the DREAM Act passed.
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.
Why We Need a Fighter in the White House
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Robert Reich: Governor, you might be able to erase some of Maine’s memory, but you’ll have a hard time erasing the nation’s memory – even if it’s not in keeping with your pro-business goals.
President Obama: MIA
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Walter Brasch: Good presidents do what is best for the country. Great presidents, however, do not only what is best for the people, but are also willing to speak to the courage of their beliefs, of their principles, even if it may be unpopular among many of their constituencies.
Why All Workers Should Support Unions
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Shamus Cooke: Thanks to years of right-wing propaganda — and labor union inertia — millions of Americans are “union skeptics,” unsure as to the nature of the union animal.
Alarmed & Angry at Christmas Time
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Carl Bloice: Reflect on the sudden, shocking awareness that that one third of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives are prepared to let 2 million people – victims of an economic crisis not of their making – face the holidays with no income.
With Federal Benefits Set to Expire, Unemployed Workers Face Shrinking Safety Net
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Marian Wang: Not extending federal unemployment insurance, it noted, would cause 2 million unemployed workers to be cut off from federal unemployment benefits by the end of the year.
Unless Congress Acts, A Bleak Holiday Season for Millions
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Carl Bloice: If Congress does not vote over the next week and a half to re-authorize federal unemployment benefits through next year, before they expire November 30, nearly 2 million women and men and their families will face a dismal holiday season.
Why the Lame Duck Congress Must Extend Jobless Benefits For Hard-Hit Families But Not Tax Cuts For the Rich
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Robert Reich: Don’t extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. Give unemployment benefits to people who need them.
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.
Of Course Poverty Is On the Rise In Charles Dickens’ America
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David Love: That anyone can actually utter the words “the recession is over” at a time of mass unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness and general despair tells you all you need to know about America. The nation actually exists as two nations: the few that have, and the many who don’t.
What Teabaggers Owe Liberals
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Sherwood Ross: Get it straight: the best remedy for what ails America is to pay working people fairly. It is the toil and dollars of the American people that made America great.
Beyond Unemployment Insurance in the Face of Structural Job Loss
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Bob Letcher: Unemployment compensation was conceived as a temporary solution to a temporary problem, getting people through the down part of one cycle to the up part of the next cycle; not as a long-term solution to a long-term structural problem.
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.
“Hands off My Medicare”: The Deadly Legacy of Social Insurance
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Colin Gordon: As the House and Senate hammer together the controversial health-care bill, a historian of the issue warns that the new law may be doomed by the American system of treating government benefits as bought and paid for.
How Obama Can Convince Congress to Enact a Larger Stimulus, and Why He Must
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The Administration’s biggest economic mistake so far was to badly underestimate last January how bad the employment situation would become by Fall. As a result, it low-balled the stimulus — settling for a plan that, while avoiding even worse job losses, didn’t go nearly far enough.
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Fox News: No Love for Union Maids
Steven Mikulan: Fox pundits typically charge that behind every government entitlement program lurks a reckless impulse to reward the indolent, undeserving mob with free goods and services.