Campaign for America’s Future.
ROBERT BOROSAGE
Time For The Senate To Act On Jobs
January’s unemployment numbers show that while Wall Street bankers continue to thrive, American workers continue to suffer under a deep recession. The numbers should serve as a stark reminder to Congress that the time to act is now and our nation needs a strong, comprehensive jobs program. The House’s “Jobs for Main Street Bill” is a step in the right direction and the Senate needs to pass this vital legislation without delay.
ROBERT BOROSAGE
The GOP: Grand, Old and Preposterous. The GOP is unable and unwilling to have a serious conversation with Americans about the fix we are in. Instead the party’s leaders posture and pose, as practiced as a Gregorian chorus in chanting their poll tested messaging that makes utterly no sense.
BILL SCHER
We Need 402,000 Jobs A Month. Does The Senate Get It?
Today, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled plans for a series of job-related bills, but details remained sketchy apparently because negotiations are still ongoing to secure enough Republican support to avoid filibuster. Unsurprisingly, weaker tax cut proposals are more likely to get bipartisan support than robust public investment proposals. So far, Senate leaders are not saying how big their proposals will be, nor how much jobs they are expected to create. Perhaps they need us to put a fine point on how giant the jobs hole is that we’re in. To return the level of employment we had before the recession began, we need to create 402,000 jobs month for three years straight.
Cap-and-Trade and Cap-and-Dividend Can Be Friends!
Getting into a full-blown debate about what is the absolute bestest perfectest way to avert a climate crisis, when no solution is perfect and every one has political obstacles, was clearly recipe for inaction. But this year, the game has changed.
TULA CONNELL
Republicans First Slime, Then Maneuver to Block Labor Board Nominee
Republican Senate leaders are so frightened that a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) might actually have an open mind about workers’ rights, that in two purely partisan maneuvers, they’ve blocked a majority vote on one of President Obama’s nominees for an NLRB seat. Craig Becker is a highly respected and experienced labor law practitioner and scholar. He has an impressive 27-year record of advocating for and representing workers, especially low-wage workers. He is currently an associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and SEIU. That experience – as opposed to being the type of management stooge favored by the Bush administration – is what has driven Republicans into a mouth-foaming frenzy.
DAVE JOHNSON
Roots Of Conservative Failure: Bush Called Deficits “Incredibly Positive News”
Lest we forget where the huge deficits and debt came from… On August 25, 2001, just seven months after taking office, George W. Bush learned that his budgets had already erased the previous administration’s huge surplus – that was paying off our country’s debt at a rapid rate – and had instead forced the country to start borrowing again. Bush said it was “Incredibly Positive News’’
Just This One Conservative Failure Cost 1.4 Million Jobs
Just one of the many conservative failures cost 1.4 million jobs, all by itself. And never mind how much borrowing it caused.
SARA ROBINSON
GOP vs Mainstream America: DKos Poll Pulls the Mask off the Village Idiots
On Tuesday, the Daily Kos published a new Research 2000 study showing the current state of belief in the GOP. Though the results aren’t anything new – indeed, the study just puts hard numbers to everything we already thought we knew about the right wing – the data also show, in sharp detail, just how far to the right the GOP has been dragged by its right wing…and how far out of step they are with the rest of America as a result.
NATASHA CHART
Bwahahaha, Or, The Disneyland-Vegas Express
Laugh if you want, but even the Chinese know that it would be a fabulous idea to link Anaheim, CA to Las Vegas, NV by high speed rail, potentially creating 90,000 jobs in the process, which is why a Chinese export-import bank is looking to finance it after the U.S. federal government decided
PROGRESSIVE VOICES — VIEWPOINTS WORTH READING
DEAN BAKER
Big Banks Are Feeding Like Parasites on the Government’s Money
alternet.org – Wall Street bankers, along with the rest of the players in the financial industry, like to think of themselves as swashbuckling capitalists. They battle cutthroat competition with one hand and oppressive government bureaucracy with the other. In reality, the financial industry is deeply dependent on the government. Far from the rugged, go-it-alone types they wish they were, they are more like well-dressed, coddled adolescents. And this is true in good times and bad. The industry’s dependency takes five main forms.
DANIEL GROSS
newsweek.com – Here we go again. Whenever the subject of taxes comes up – and it’s come up in the debate over the Obama administration’s decision to let many of the Bush-era tax cuts expire this year – we’re treated to a chorus of complaints that people who make $250,000 a year aren’t really rich. Raising taxes on these people, we’re told, would be raising taxes on the middle class. I have two pieces of bad news for the over-$250,000 crowd. First, the reversal of some of the temporary Bush tax cuts is probably inevitable, given the appalling mismanagement of fiscal affairs between 2001 and 2008. Second, for those of you making more than $250,000, I regret to inform you yet again: Yes, you are indeed rich – any way you slice it.
KATE PICKERT
The Unsustainable U.S. Health Care System
swampland.blogs.time.com – Here’s a newsflash for those fretting that Democratic health reform will lead to a “government takeover of the health care system” – the feds will account for more than half of all U.S. health spending by 2012 even if nothing changes. According to a report out today from economists at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, federal spending on health care grew faster than private spending in 2009, as more people fell off private insurance rolls and signed up for Medicaid. While the recession is largely to blame for changes in 2009, CMS predicts the trend of an increasing government role in health spending to continue. One reason: As more baby boomers grow old enough to qualify for Medicare, that program is on track to grow substantially. The CMS report couldn’t have come at a better time for Democrats.
E.J. DIONNE
truthout.org – Beneath the predictable back-and-forth between Obama and his Republican adversaries over government spending lies a substantively important difference over how the United States can maintain its global leadership. For Republicans, American power is rooted largely in military might and showing a tough and resolute face to the world. They would rely on tax cuts as the one and only spur to economic growth. Obama, Biden and the Democrats, on the other hand, believe that American power depends ultimately on the American economy, and that government has an essential role to play in fostering the next generation of growth.
