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Immigration Reform Must Include Workers' Rights by Amy Dean, Huffington Post | January 30, 2013
In the current political climate, immigration reform is broadly popular, with both parties eager to win over the Hispanic electorate in 2014 and 2016. But that doesn't mean that a bipartisan effort will pass a good law -- especially if long-time opponents of immigration reform are only cynically vying for votes. For the Democrats, the challenge will be to avoid simply jumping at the first deal offered by newly converted conservatives. Instead, for the first time in decades, promoters of reform have the opportunity to hold America to its promise of being a land of liberty and justice for all. Most centrally, that comes down to the issue of work. Holding America to its promise will mean ensuring that immigrants have pathways for securing just and meaningful employment in this country. read more »Obama's Jobs Council Fail by Erika Eichelberger, Mother Jones | January 30, 2013
President Barack Obama's jobs council, a panel formed in January 2011 to gather outside expertise on job creation, is set to expire Thursday. It appears unlikely that the president will renew it for another term, but experts say that the council has been such a loser that its death might actually be a good thing. The jobs panel, officially called the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, is made up of 26 important people from industry, labor, and academia, and was "created to provide non-partisan advice to the President…on ways to create jobs, opportunity, and prosperity for the American people," according to itswebsite. But the panel failed to accomplish much over its two-year life span, and a lot of what it did turn out was more friendly to business than to regular people. read more »So Is Austerity Now a Problem? by Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly | January 30, 2013
One of the more darkly entertaining things to watch in Washington right now is the dance of those who are alarmed about the pending March 1 “sequestration” of defense funds trying to make their case without admitting the underlying principle that public-sector austerity (defense or non-defense) is bad for a still-deflated economy. The job of reconciling these points of view got harder today with the release of databy the Commerce Department suggesting that drops in federal spending were mainly responsible for plunging the four quarter GDP numbers into the red. First quarter GDP estimates are already being depressed by the growing impact of the payroll tax increase that hit on January 1, which a lot of people just didn’t anticipate. It’s awfully tempting to argue for a delay in the defense sequester on “stimulus” grounds—if you are the kind of politician who hasn’t abundantly estopped any such argument with prior shrieks about deficit spending being the economy’s main problem. read more »Can The Rising Progressive Tide Lift All Ships? by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post | January 29, 2013
The growing progressive coalition that helped elect President Obama has emerged at the end of a failed and exhausted conservative era. The media now chronicle the flailings of Republican leaders slowly awakening to the weaknesses of a stale, pale and predominantly male party in today’s America. But the central challenge to this progressive coalition is not dispatching the old but rather defining what comes next. Will it be able to address the central challenge facing America at this time and reclaim the American Dream from an extreme and corrosive economic inequality? read more »How Will Immigration Reform Affect Black America? by Marlon Hill, thegrio.com | January 29, 2013
Let’s make no mistake about it: as the years pass, America is becoming a “browner” nation. With the present discourse over immigration reform, we have an extraordinary opportunity to mix our understanding and appreciation for race, culture and language with public policy. We, the people of America, have been wrestling with our self identity, and will continue to do so in the near future. With Black History Month imminently upon us, we can not only celebrate our history, heritage and culture, but we can also insert ourselves in a critical national debate on how to fix our broken immigration system. Likewise, this immigration debate provides the black community an opportunity to learn more about the stories and challenges of black immigrants who increasingly populate our states as asylees, refugees, legal immigrants, and undocumented persons. read more »The Non Zero-Sum Society by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | January 29, 2013
As President Obama said in his inaugural address last week, America “cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.” Yet that continues to be the direction we’re heading in. A newly-released analysis shows that the top 1 percent of earners’ real wages grew 8.2 percent from 2009 to 2011, yet the real annual wages of Americans in the bottom 90 percent have continued to decline in the recovery, eroding by 1.2 percent between 2009 and 2011. But the President is exactly right. Not even the very wealthy can continue to succeed without a broader-based prosperity. That’s because 70 percent of economic activity in America is consumer spending. If the bottom 90 percent of Americans are becoming poorer, they’re less able to spend. Without their spending, the economy can’t get out of first gear. read more »The Folly Of DC's Desperate Deficit Fearmongers by Dean Baker, The Guardian | January 29, 2013
The news that the UK, with negative growth in the fourth quarter of 2012, faces the prospect of a triple-dip recession, should be the final blow to the intellectual credibility of deficit hawks. You just can't get more wrong than this flat-earth bunch of economic policy-makers. They're pretty much batting zero. They failed to foresee the collapse of housing bubbles in the US and Europe and its consequent downturn. They grossly underestimated its severity after it hit. And their policy prescription of austerity has been shown to be wrong everywhere that applied it: in the US, the eurozone and, especially, the UK. By all rights, these folks should be laughed out of town. They should be retrained for a job more suited to their skill set – preferably, something that doesn't involve numbers, or people. read more »It’s About Growth, Not The Deficit by E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post | January 28, 2013
If you care about deficits, you should want our economy to grow faster. If you care about lifting up the poor and reducing unemployment, you should want our economy to grow faster. And if you are a committed capitalist and hope to make more money, you should want our economy to grow faster. The moment’s highest priority should be speeding economic growth and ending the waste, human and economic, left by the Great Recession. But you would never know this because the conversation in our nation’s capital is being held hostage by a ludicrous cycle of phony fiscal deadlines driven by a misplaced belief that the only thing we have to fear is the budget deficit. Let’s call a halt to this madness. If we don’t move the economy to a better place, none of the fiscal projections will matter. The economic downturn ballooned the deficit. Growth will move the numbers in the right direction. read more »Obama's Heaviest Lift by Robert Kuttner, Huffington Post | January 28, 2013
President Obama is off to a good start in his second term. "We, the people," he pledged in his second inaugural, "still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity." Amen to that. But as the economy continues its agonizingly slow recovery, his greatest challenge will be to reverse the economy's widening inequality. Ordinary working families are falling further and further behind the cost of living. The picture is especially brutal for young adults, who are likely to find themselves saddled with college debt, facing jobs that offer neither benefits nor career security. So the challenge, as President Obama famously told "Joe the Plumber" is to spread the wealth around. How do we do that? Here are four ways. read more »Deficit Hawks Down by Paul Krugman, The New York Times | January 24, 2013
President Obama’s second Inaugural Address offered a lot for progressives to like. There was the spirited defense of gay rights; there was the equally spirited defense of the role of government, and, in particular, of the safety net provided by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But arguably the most encouraging thing of all was what he didn’t say: He barely mentioned the budget deficit. Mr. Obama’s clearly deliberate neglect of Washington’s favorite obsession was just the latest sign that the self-styled deficit hawks — better described as deficit scolds — are losing their hold over political discourse. And that’s a very good thing. Why have the deficit scolds lost their grip? I’d suggest four interrelated reasons. read more »
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Democrats think Obama's playing tax-cut extension fight well , The Miami Herald | December 15, 2011
Robert Borosage was quoted in an article in the Miami Herald about the debate to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. more »
Globalize This: Occupy UK converges on London, The Guardian | November 20, 2011
Robert Borosage on C-Span Talks Jobs And the Economy, wc-spanvideo.org | October 17, 2011
US Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, usw.org | March 6, 2011
The 16 Profitable Companies That Pay Almost Nothing In Taxes, businessinsider.com | February 19, 2011
Obama Budget Plan: Cuts To Target Working Poor, Middle Class & Students, Huffington Post | February 15, 2011
