An Economy for All
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Governing on Empty
December 21st, 2011
The Senate, having struck its compromise, has gone home. The House, controlled by delusional Republicans, has gone home. Payroll taxes are slated to rise, and unemployment insurance is set to expire before they return in January. The compromise wasn’t just between the two parties in the Senate, apparently. According to Wednesday’s Washington Post, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell on Friday and told him they’d get the votes to pass the two-month extension deal he’d worked out with Harry Reid. But Boehner, who is turning out to be the weakest speaker since the House was first gaveled to order in 1789, couldn’t hold his troops, whose caucus meetings, by numerous accounts, increasingly resemble the pep rallies of cults that have lost all feel for how other humans think.
Featured Issues
The Foreclosure Fraud Machine
For the past few days, our blog team has been chronicling the implications of a fraud machine run by some of the nation's largest financial institutions. The same machine that peddled the predatory loans that helped create the Wall Street financial crisis is now mass-producing the legally dubious paperwork that seeks to put thousands of people out of their homes.
Read our reports and analysis »
... more »
Battling Messages: Democrats Need to Enter the Fray
By Digby
March 23rd, 2011
New polling with the same results:
more »
The GOP Payroll Tax Plan Does So Stink
December 1st, 2011
No doubt Republicans know the fight over extending the payroll tax is one they could lose. Thus, they've pivoted away from opposing the extension, and have presented a plan of their own — one that Timothy Noah says the Democrats should be willing to work with because it "doesn't stink."
Well, in my experience, just because you can't smell something doesn't mean it doesn't sink. Some things "pass the smell test" because of a faulty sniffer; not because they don't stink. And the GOP's payroll tax plan does so stink.
... more »
The Case
Why An Economy for All?
Conservatives call the state of the economy the “greatest story never told,” but in reality it’s an economy reminiscent of the Gilded Age. The myth of a booming economy does not reflect the everyday experiences of working-class Americans. In fact, most Americans see the nation either in or near a recession. We need a broad reassessment of our economic policies.more »
Minimum Wage Hike: Stimulus When We Need It
On July 24, the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 an hour. At a time when getting money into the hands of workers—and thus consumers—is key to jump-starting the economy, a 10.7 percent wage increase will mean $1.6 billion in extra purchasing power for the estimated 4.5 million workers directly affected by the increase. more »
The Facts
Manufacturing Jobs Decline 17% Past Seven Years
Between 2001 and 2007, more 3 million manufacturing workers lost their jobs—a 17 percent decline.
Unfair Taxes, Benefit Wealthy, Hurt Middle Class
Today, the top federal income-tax rate for ordinary income is 35 percent, meaning that earned income is taxed at a rate 2 1/3 higher than income from capital gains
The News
Democrats think Obama's playing tax-cut extension fight well
December 15th, 2011
The Case
The Tax Expenditure Of The 1%
The Tax Policy Center’s new report on the distribution of tax expenditures strengthens the case for increasing tax progressivity and raising needed revenue by ending the preferential treatment of capital income (subject to a 15 percent tax rate versus a top marginal income tax rate of 35 percent). TPC’s analysis looks at seven broad categories of individual income tax expenditures: exclusions, above-the-line deductions, the preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends, itemized deductions, nonrefundable tax credits, refundable tax credits, and other miscellaneous tax expenditures. Guess which category of tax expenditure provides by far the most lopsided benefit to upper-income households?more »
The GOP's Nonsensical Attempt to Paint Elizabeth Warren as a Hypocrite
George Washington was a hypocrite. O.K., that’s not what I believe. But it’s apparently what Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts believes. Mr. Brown, in his campaign for re-election, is going all out on the proposition that Elizabeth Warren is a big hypocrite. According to Brian McGrory, a columnist at The Boston Globe, Mr. Brown, a Republican, “seems to be fuming that his main Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, has done pretty well for herself financially.” You see, Ms. Warren has been crusading to help the endangered middle class — but she herself is a well-paid Harvard professor, who would end up paying higher taxes as a result of the policies she advocates. See the hypocrisy? Neither do I. I’ve written about this before; somehow the notion has entered our politics that supporting a cause that isn’t in your personal financial interest makes you a hypocrite. It’s really bizarre.more »
Latest from our Bloggers
jul
20
2009
9:41 am
9:41 am
I am happy to announce that beginning today I will be working as a Fellow and blogger with Campaign for America's Future. This post introduces the areas I will be pursuing. more »
feb
7
2012
9:53 pm
9:53 pm
Co-written with David Reeves.
Several GOP presidential candidates have made competing claims to the Reagan mantle this election season. So in order to determine once and for all which candidates truly honor the Gipper’s legacy, we are submitting the following questionnaire to the remaining Republican presidential nominee contenders. (Except for you, Mitt-- you were more »
feb
7
2012
3:55 pm
3:55 pm
Just in case you missed the news, "Insider trading" is back. It's even bipartisan. Well, the truth is that it never really went away after its heyday during the 1980s, when Gordon Gekko served as a stand-in for era villains like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky. It launched more investigations in the 1990s than at any other time, except for the 1980s.
In the "aughts," the names and players changed, but the "inside game" remains the same. Now, Raj Rajaratnam and Martha Stewart serve as stand-ins for Milken and Boesky. Gekko even returned to the scene, getting out of prison little more than year before Rajaratnam began serving his own prison sentence. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney could even be called a stand-in for Gordon Gekko, in the 2012 presidential election. (But Newt Gingrich could be a runner-up for that spot.)
Not only are insider trading and inside traders back, but they're not just on Wall Street anymore. They're all over Capitol Hill, and apparently have been for a while. Naturally, now that it's news, there's a bill to ban congressional insider trading —the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act, a/k/a the STOCK Act.
feb
7
2012
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feb
7
2012
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Last week several groups, including the United Steelworkers, petitioned the federal government to whack the latest trade mole – illegally traded auto parts from China.
With President Obama announcing creation of a new trade enforcement unit in his State of the Union Addre more »
feb
6
2012
3:20 pm
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I wrote earlier that Newt Gingrich's campaign is one of mutually assured destruction for the GOP. No one, I wrote, has to lift a finger to destroy Newt Gingrich. Just stand back, give him room, and he'll do it himself. The thing is, you want to stand way, way back — otherwise Newt's liable to try and take you with him. The problem for the GOP is that they can't put enough daylight between themselves and Newt. And even if they manage to do that, they're still stuck with Mitt.
The latest self-destruction of Newt Gingrich will be televised. If he's able to carry on after losing the Nevada Primary to Mitt Romney, and make good on his promise to campaign all the way to the convention in Tampa, we can look forward to more performances like his post-Iowa temper tantrum, his post-Florida flame-out, and his bizarre concession-speech-cum-press-conference after Nevada.
feb
5
2012
3:49 pm
3:49 pm
Any resemblance between democracy and U.S. Presidential politics has become, in our new super PAC era, purely coincidental. The only mystery: Why aren't billionaires placing even bigger bets?more »
