CAF In The News

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On "The Young Turks" with Cenk Uygur on Current TV, Cenk asks his Power Panel — Michael Shure, Richard Eskow and Robert Borosage — whether President Obama’s strong State of the Union showing is a sign he can win re-election in November.

“The guy I saw last night — I thought, that guy may be able to fight back and make his case and actually beat Mitt or Newt,” Cenk says.

Eskow praises Obama’s “fighting speech” but says it’s time for him to think a couple steps ahead — otherwise the GOP line will be, “Nice guy, doesn’t deliver on his promises.”

current.com — Isaiah J. Poole appeared on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" December 13 to discuss the Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act, legislation designed to create 5 million jobs over the next two years.

video.kcts9.org —

Watch Institute for America's Future founder Robert Borosage on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

Institute for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage appeared on the Tavis Smiley Show on October 31 to discuss the tax and economic policies advanced by Republican presidential candidates and their impact on middle- and low-income people.

He calls the flat-tax proposals of candidates Rick Perry and Herman Cain, as well as the regressive tax changes offered by candidate Mitt Romney, "reverse Robin Hood plans" that take from the poor in terms of reduced government services and higher taxes, and give to the rich in the form of a lower overall tax burden. These plans come "at a time in which we're seeing extreme inequality and concentrated wealth we haven't seen since before the Great Depression."

The flat tax plans are particularly egregious, Borosage tells Smiley. In the case of Perry, his plan "eliminates taxes on wealth" and slashes government revenues by $5 trillion over 10 years, a deficit that has to be made up by a 25 percent cut in government spending, including "deep cuts in the basic promises we make to working Americans about their retirement."

Cain's plan "is the worst," Borosage says, because it would among other things impose a 9 percent national sales tax on top of the state and local taxes people pay on consumer goods. Because the lower the income a person makes the higher the percentage of that income is devoted to spending on consumer items, that means the Cain plan would fall the hardest on low-income and middle-income people.

Borosage also raises concerns about "a financialization of our economy that is having really disastrous effects on ... our ability to ensure that the strength of our democracy, which is a strong middle class, is sustained." Smiley responds, "It's not just that our economy is challenged by those kinds of numbers, but it's democracy as we know it. Some people might call that hyperbolic, but I don't. ... I don't think the democracy can sustain itself long term with the kind of numbers you just laid out."

wc-spanvideo.org —

In this 45-minute exchange on C-Span with Robb Harleston and with viewers, Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future discusses the nation's jobs crisis, the Obama administration's American Jobs Act, and the effort to build an independent progressive movement.

nytimes.com — Robert Borosage was quoted by New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes on July 30, 2011.

Calmes wrote, "However the debt limit showdown ends, one thing is clear: under pressure from Congressional Republicans, President Obama has moved rightward on budget policy, deepening a rift within his party heading into the next election. Entering a campaign that is shaping up as an epic clash over the parties’ divergent views on the size and role of the federal government, Republicans have changed the terms of the national debate. Mr. Obama, seeking to appeal to the broad swath of independent voters, has adopted the Republicans’ language and in some cases their policies, while signaling a willingness to break with liberals on some issues.
That has some progressive members of Congress and liberal groups arguing that by not fighting for more stimulus spending, Mr. Obama could be left with an economy still producing so few jobs by Election Day that his re-election could be threatened. Besides turning off independents, Mr. Obama risks alienating Democratic voters already disappointed by his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and his failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, end the Bush-era tax cuts and enact a government-run health insurance system.
“The activist liberal base will support Obama because they’re terrified of the right wing,” said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal group Campaign for America’s Future.
But he said, “I believe that the voting base of the Democratic Party — young people, single women, African-Americans, Latinos — are going to be so discouraged by this economy and so dismayed unless the president starts to champion a jobs program and take on the Republican Congress that the ability of labor to turn out its vote, the ability of activists to mobilize that vote, is going to be dramatically reduced.”

To read the rest of the New York Times story, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/us/politics/31dems.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

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Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison and Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage discuss the need to change the political debate in Washington to one that addresses the need for jobs in an interview on National Public Radio's "Tell Me More" on June 15.

The interview previewed the Speakout For Good Jobs Now tour, which was scheduled to make its first stop at the Netroots Nation conference of bloggers and activists in Minneapolis on June 18.

washingtonpost.com — The Washington Post's Ylan Q. Mui reported on the Campaign for America's Future's efforts to urge for a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the CFPB: "Liberal groups rallied around Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday and renewed calls for her to lead the fledgling consumer watchdog agency, a day after she was accused of lying in a contentious congressional hearing.

"An online petition circulated by the Campaign for America’s Future asking the White House to appoint her while the Senate is in recess garnered 20,000 signatures by Wednesday afternoon."

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/liberal-groups-call-for-warren-recess-appointment/2011/05/25/AGRV8XBH_story.html

nationaljournal.com — Robert Borosage was interviewed by Susan Davis of the National Journal magazine. Davis wrote, "Progressive Democrats haven’t enjoyed the breadth of policy or political victories that they anticipated when President Obama took office in 2009, but they are finding new reasons to rally as a fresh crop of Republican lawmakers embarks on a policy agenda that is anathema to liberals."
Borosage said, "while we are restive about the limits of the White House’s agenda, Republicans are going to do a good job with their extremism of organizing the Left for the president."
Read the interview here: http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/robert-borosage-the-view-from-the-left-20110512

npr.org — Robert Borosage is quoted by David Welna of National Public Radio in a story about the politics around the building movement to draw down U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the death of Osama Bin Laden.

"WELNA: Many posing that question are on the political left. Robert Borosage co-directs the liberal advocacy group Campaign for America's Future. Bin Laden's death, he says, is the political opportunity for President Obama to end the war.

"Mr. ROBERT BOROSAGE (Co-director, Campaign for America's Future): I think that people inside the administration and outside the administration realize that at this point, this policy has no clothes and it's going to change."

boston.com — Robert Borosage is quoted in the Boston Globe in an article about the changing public perception of the war in Afghanistan after the death of Osama Bin Laden. Borosage said, “You’ll see everybody from the libertarians like Rand and Ron Paul to even the old gray beards like Lugar beginning to express that we’ve done this for 10 years, it’s a bottomless pit, we can’t afford to keep doing it, and this is a good occasion to start to withdraw,’’ said Robert L. Borosage, codirector of Campaign for America’s Future, a Washington group that promotes liberal causes.