According to a Pew Charitable Trusts study released Thursday, baby boomers and Generation Xers are increasingly unlikely to be able to afford the costs of retirement, making critical the need for a strong Social Security program to bridge this income gap. Instead of weakening the social safety net by using the “chained CPI” to reduce Social Security cost-of-living increases, this study proves that we need to increase the protections for the elderly to make sure they can maintain their standard of living.

In order to do this, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin has put forth a bill that would strengthen Social Security, not weaken it, as President Obama’s budget have proposed. The Strengthening Social Security Act of 2013 (S. 567) would help place a bridge over the gap where America’s seniors are falling short. You can support this effort by signing this MoveOn petition, which is currently 12,000 signatures away from its goal of 100,000.

The Pew study’s findings are troubling. The study found that while early baby boomers may be in a better position to have a secure retirement as beneficiaries of the housing bubble and dot-com boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, those born after 1955 would have a much tougher time trying to secure their retirement. While most financial planners suggest being able to replace 70 percent of your earned income during retirement, the Pew study found that many late baby boomers will only be able to replace 60 percent of their current income, and Gen-Xers will only be able to replace half of their pre-retirement income.

The Pew study found that early baby boomers might well be the last generation to be able to afford a secure retirement, with late baby boomers and Gen-Xers accumulating too much debt from credit cards, mortgages and student loans to retire securely. Gen-Xers, who did not have the most solid financial foundation to start, took the hardest hit from the Great Recession, losing nearly half of their wealth in the crash.

With these findings, and the fact that an increasing number of seniors rely on their Social Security checks for between 50 percent and 90 percent of their income, it is easy to see that the chained CPI is going to hurt millions of seniors. The chained CPI uses the substitutions for cheaper items consumers make in response to inflation to come up with a cost-of-living increase that is a bit lower than the standard consumer price index. But the chained CPI does not take into account the items that comprise a higher share of spending for seniors, such as health care and housing, that tend to have a higher inflation rate thanconsumer goods generally. Researchers estimate that chained CPI would mean an average benefit cut of over $1,000 a year for someone who retires at age 65 and lives to be 95. Clearly, with so many people having a decreased ability to enough for retirement, now is the exact wrong time to be cutting Social Security benefits.

While the chained CPI would cut Social Security benefits to seniors, the Strengthen Social Security Act of 2013 would provide a form of relief. According to Senator Harkin’s office, the bill would:

• Strengthen Benefits by Reforming the Social Security Benefit Formula: To improve benefits for current and future Social Security beneficiaries, the Act changes the method by which the Social Security Administration calculates Social Security benefits. This change will boost benefits for all Social Security beneficiaries by approximately $70 per month, but is targeted to help those in the low and middle of the income distribution, for whom Social Security has become an ever greater share of their retirement income.
• Ensure that Cost of Living Adjustments Adequately Reflect the Living Expenses of Retirees: The Act changes the way the Social Security Administration calculates the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA). To ensure that benefits better reflect cost increases facing seniors, future COLAs will be based on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E). Making this change to Social Security is expected to result in higher COLAs, ensuring that seniors are able to better keep up with the rising costs of essential items, like health care.

These changes would soften the blow that many Americans’ savings took during the Great Recession, and provide a stronger program of relief when we need it the most.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after signing the Social Security Act of 1935, said, “We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.”

Roosevelt had the foresight to see that America needed a safety net to protect its people from the excesses of the banks and Wall Street. From the Great Depression was born Social Security. Now, instead of recognizing that the wound from the Great Recession has not healed, there has been an attempt to short the American people by cutting a program that is increasingly important to seniors. Now that we know that many Americans will be unable to support themselves in retirement, we must not cut the program designed to insure the population against the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but strengthen it.

Senate Republican obstruction of President Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, Thomas Perez, got a strong rebuke from a coalition of Latino organizations that held a march and rally on Wednesday to call for an end to the filibuster threats to his nomination.

“We are here to put forward our full support for Tom Perez as the Secretary of Labor. He is eminently qualified for the post after a distinguished career in law and public service,” said Janet Murguia, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. Joining Murguia were representatives from the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, CASA de Maryland, United Farm Workers and the Hispanic National Bar Association.

“Tom Perez is a respected and beloved leader in the Latino community. He has been a champion for Hispanic families, and we are here for him because he has been there for us,” Murguia said. “We urge the senators opposed to this nomination to stop their unconscionable delaying tactics and allowing this nomination to go forward. Tom deserves a vote, and we as a Latino community, are watching very closely.”

Perez is one of the dozens of Obama appointees who have fallen victim to the GOP’s obstructionism in the Senate. In Obama’s first term, the average nominee took more than four times as long to be confirmed as a nominee of President George W. Bush. The obstruction is only being ratcheted up in Obama’s second term; last week Republicans refused to show up at a committee hearing to stall the confirmation of Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy. Republicans are using what they call Perez’ “ideological background” as their excuse to delay the nomination vote, which has been rescheduled for Thursday.

“It is totally unacceptable what is happening now in the Senate. There is enough proof to show that he is a qualified candidate to be our next Secretary of Labor, and to be on the front lines fighting for working families,” said Hector Sanchez, Chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda.

Sanchez went on to point out the civil rights issues that Perez has taken up, including fighting the SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law in Arizona; HB 56 in Alabama, the nation’s “toughest immigration law”; and voting rights issues.

“Tom Perez can work with the entire society, not only with Latinos and workers, but with everybody,” said Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland, citing his work with migrant workers as well as high marks given to him by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and his work with the largest employers in Maryland.

“Unfortunately, he faces opposition from some Senators who say that he has been to vigorous in enforcing our nation’s civil rights laws, said Peter Reyes, President of the Hispanic National Bar Association, “When Tom Perez was nominated to serve at the Justice Department, he was confirmed by a vote of 72-22, with seventeen Republican senators who voted for him, including nine who are still in the Senate today. Those senators voted for Tom Perez to do a job, he did his job and he did it well. Some senators will never vote for a Tom Perez, and that is fine, but they should not be blocking the rest of the Senate from an up-or-down vote.”

African Americans in retirement or on disability would be hit particularly hard by a proposal to use the “chained CPI” to limit cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits, according to a new study released by the Center for Global Policy Solutions.

Changing the inflation adjustment from the commonly used Consumer Price Index to the chained CPI, which incorporates how consumers respond to inflation by switching to lower-priced alternatives, would cut benefits to all seniors by more than $4,600 over the first 10 years, and $28,000 over 30 years. That would hit African-American retirees, who rely more heavily on Social Security benefits than white households, especially hard. Forty-seven percent of African-American seniors rely on Social Security for more than 90 percent of their income; for 40 percent of seniors, Social Security is their only source of income.

Those in the African-American community who receive Social Security benefits due to disability or death would also feel a disproportionate impact. The report pointed out that:

• While 10 percent of the U.S. workforce are African Americans, they make up 19 percent of disabled workers receiving benefits.
• African-American children are twice as likely to receive survivor benefits from Social Security as white children.
• Though 15 percent of the nation’s children are African American, they are 21 percent of the children receiving disability benefits.

The median wealth of African-American households amounts to only a nickel for every dollar of the median wealth of white households, according to the report. With a wealth gap so large, many more white households will be able to offset the cuts in Social Security than African Americans.

“As a result of racial wealth disparities, African Americans will be negatively affected by implementation of the chained CPI regardless of the non-means tested federal program from which they receive their benefits,” said Maya Rockeymoore, president and CEO of the Center for Global Policy Solutions. “With precious few other assets to help meet expenses, African Americans will experience deeper economic pain as a result of the chained CPI.”

It is troubling enough to think that those who need the protection of Social Security the most, the elderly, are going to be hurt by the switch, but knowing that many of the youth who also receive the benefits of Social Security are going to be hit should make the case against using the chained CPI as a panacea to our deficit problems. It is unfair to place the saddle of debt burden on the backs of those who need it the most.

There are other solutions that will allow America to save money as well as protect the achievements of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, Rockeymoore points out: “The President and Congress should identify reforms—like lifting Social Security’s cap on taxable wages—that strengthen the program’s solvency while providing a basis for ensuring that benefits work for those who need them most.”

Corporations are shifting more of their money overseas to avoid the taxman in the U.S. and pursuing territorial tax legislation in Congress that would further enshrine that tax evasion into law. At a conference call Monday for progressive writers hosted by the Campaign for America’s Future’s Dave Johnson, leaders of Center for Tax Justice and the Americans for Tax Fairness explained the territorial tax proposal and the harm tax havens do to the middle-class economy.

At the beginning of the call (which you can listen to in full), Johnson painted the picture of what American corporate taxation looks like these days. “Corporate tax revenues as a share of GDP have fallen to near historic lows. At 1.7 percent of GDP in 2009, the U.S. has the third-lowest effective corporate burden in the world based on corporate taxes as percentage of GDP.” He followed up describing the how the corporate tax structure sits today, “The top corporate tax rate was 52.8 percent in 1970, 48 percent through that decade, then, in the 1986 tax ‘reform’ phased them down to 35 percent, which is where the top rate is currently.”

With America facing a large deficit, in great part due to funding two wars on borrowed money, and with an estimated $1.46 trillion being diverted through overseas tax shelters, the country needs the ability to tax these profits at the corporate tax rate. Doing so would net the country another $511 billion; the equivalent of lowering the federal deficit per person by more than $1,500.

“Hundred of billions of dollars are at stake over 10 years,” said Frank Clemente, the director of the Americans for Tax Fairness, “the other ATF that the right hates.” He adds, “One big loophole alone is worth over than $600 billion over 10 years. It dwarfs the [savings] that would be proposed in the chained CPI.”

“Corporate profits are at a 60-year high,” Clemente continued, “and corporate share of federal revenues is down to a 60-year low. Some of these companies are paying less in taxes than you or I are paying, including companies such as GE. Companies claim that the tax rate is too high, but the effective corporate tax rate is actually around 12 percent.”

According to tax haven experts at McKinsey commissioned by the Tax Justice Network, an estimated $21 trillion has been squirreled away by multinationals and the global elite in offshore tax havens. In the United States, corporations are waiting for a tax repatriation holiday to bring these overseas profits back at a 5 percent rate, as they successfully lobbied to receive in 2004. But, as Clemente said during the call, “they did not create any jobs the last time they brought these profits back.”

Clemente opposes revenue-neutral corporate tax reform, arguing for the need to raise money from corporations instead of giving them tax breaks in the name of reforming the tax code. He also opposes the territorial tax proposal, in which foreign profits are only taxed in the nation they are earned, and would not be subject to U.S. taxes.

These positions have support from the American people, Clemente said, and even some bipartisan support in the Senate, with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., proposing the Cut Unjustified Tax Loopholes Act with support from former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“The federal tax code absolutely needs reform, for corporate and individual taxes,” said Steve Wamhoff, the legislative director of Citizens for Tax Justice. “Corporate tax reform needs to raise revenues as well as ending incentives for corporations to shift profits and jobs offshore. These incentives exist because the U.S. tax code allows companies to defer or delay paying taxes on profits earned offshore until they bring profits back to the U.S., which sometimes they never do. The companies have incentive to disguise their U.S. profits as ‘foreign profits’, profits that are generated in some country like Bermuda or the Bahamas, that does not have a corporate tax, in other words, a tax haven.”

Wamhoff warned that a territorial tax system would only increase the incentives to shift jobs overseas. “Right now we have a system that encourages delaying bringing profits back to the United States, but we can imagine that a system that removes the U.S. taxes completely would only encourage more offshoring,” Wamhoff said. “We have proposals that end deferral, and that is what we think is the best option here. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has proposed a bill that would end the incentives to shift jobs and profits overseas.”

President Obama’s tax reform proposals leave much to be desired, according to Wamhoff. Obama does not close the door on tax deferrals, but allows them to stay on the books. The savings would be turned around to create a rate reduction to these corporations, which, Wamhoff says, “does not make a lot of sense, when we are being told we need to make sacrifices” while corporations are not being asked to sacrifice at the same rate as anyone else.

The double Irish with a Dutch sandwich sounds like a good happy-hour bar combo. In reality, it is the name used for one of the tax avoidance strategies companies use to lower their corporate rates by funneling revenues offshore. It is how corporations can complain that they are burdened with a 35 percent corporate tax rate on the one hand while actually paying a tax rate that averages 12 percent, with companies such as ExxonMobil, General Motors, Google and FedEx paying little to nothing in taxes.

Closing tax loopholes and preventing the U.S. from going to a territorial tax system would ensure that those who reap incredible profits and massive advantages from the United States would pay their fair share toward revitalizing the economy for everyone.

To listen to the full call, click here.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka pressed their opposition to President Obama’s proposed chained-CPI change to Social Security benefits at a Thursday afternoon news conference, denouncing it as a cut in benefits for those who need the social safety net the most.

Fifteen members of Congress, as well as around 45 supporters and members of the press, gathered on the southeast Capitol lawn. ““We are here to represent is the tens of millions of Americans who are saying that at a time we have more wealth and income inequality in this country than in any time since the 1920s, do not balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

“Social Security did not cause nor did it add to the deficit in any way. Chained CPI is some economist’s fancy way of weakening Social Security’s most important protections. This protects the purchasing power of seniors, it prevents seniors from losing economic ground each and every year,” said Trumka.

Among those who joined Sanders and Trumka were Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Reps. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; and the Leadership Conference on Civil Right’s Nancy Zirkin.

As I wrote on Tuesday, the chained CPI is a change in the cost-of-living allowance that would change how much Social Security recipients receive drastically. It would cut nearly $700 for a 75-year-old retiree and more than $1,600 for a 95-year-old retiree per year. While supporters of the chained CPI measure say that it is a more accurate way to determine costs of living, in actuality it is not representative of many of the items that the elderly purchase. It is also tantamount to a middle-class tax hike, with 70 percent of the increased taxes that come with the bill hitting those in the middle class.

“Working Americans and retirees shouldn’t be treated like bargaining chips or told to pick up the tab for corporate tax loopholes,” Grijalva said.

“When we are losing a hundred billion every year in taxes because corporations are stashing profits overseas, there are ways to deal with deficit reduction that are fair,” Sanders said. “I don’t know what kind of country we live in when we think we are going to balance the budget on the backs of the men and women who have lost their arms and legs and their eyesight defending this country. We are not going to balance the budget on the backs of the disabled.”

“They talk about cutting entitlement. Social Security is not an entitlement, it is an earned benefit; people pay into it their whole lives,” Harkin said. “How about cutting the tax break entitlements on corporations? That’s how we can save some real money. The people that this hurts the most are the last that ought to be hit by changes.”

“In an effort to compromise with Republicans, the President’s budget contains a wrongheaded provision that extracts revenues from middle class pocketbooks instead of wealthy corporate interests,” Zirkin said.

“Instead of supporting policies that harm seniors, let’s get back to the real problems facing this country—creating 21st century jobs in America, confronting climate change and growing income inequality, and making sure seniors have an adequate retirement on which to live,” said Ellison. “Let’s oppose the chained CPI.”

Opponents of President Obama’s ”chained CPI” proposal to reduce cost-of-living increases in Social Security protested in front of the White House this afternoon, bringing with them boxes of petitions bearing two million signatures urging the president to not include the proposal in the fiscal 2014 budget scheduled for release tomorrow.

“The president’s decision to include cuts to Social Security benefits in his budget is wrong policy and dumb politics“, said Roger Hickey, the co-director for the Campaign for America’s Future before the rally. “His chained CPI plan is wrong because it hurts Americans who have worked hard their entire lives and who need the support that Social Security gives them. It is wrong because Social Security is financed separately and does not contribute to the deficit.”

On a warm spring day, supporters and leaders from groups such as the AFL-CIO, Democracy for America, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, National Organization of Women, MoveOn.org and the Campaign for America’s Future joined with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Reps. Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Rick Nolan, D-Minn., to express outrage over the cuts reported to be in the president’s budget.

The chained CPI proposal would change how the cost of living expenses are calculated year by year. It is suggested that it would save the government $217 billion over ten years by cutting benefits such as Social Security and other benefits and raising revenues. The chained CPI proposal would cut the most out of Social Security. A typical cut in Social Security would be $650 a year for 75-year-olds, $1,100 a year for 85-year-olds, and more than $1,600 a year for recipients aged 95 and older.

“I would like to say thank you to the organizations representing tens of millions of workers, seniors, and disabled vets who are saying loudly and clearly, ‘We are not going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, disabled vets, the sick, the women or the children,’” said Sanders. “When one out of four major profitable corporations pays nothing in federal income tax, we know how we can deal with deficit reduction in a way that is fair.”

“We have cut as much as we can, for millions of Americans, there is nothing left to cut. President Obama, it is morally wrong to take from our parents, our grandparents and our veterans,” said Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

“Real Democrats do not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Period,” said Jim Dean, of Democracy for America. “For the Democrats who have not made up their minds yet, you are either with us, or you are against us,” continued Dean.

“Do you remember when Vice President Biden debated Congressman Ryan? There was one point in the debate that caught my attention where Vice President Biden responded to Paul Ryan with ‘That’s malarkey’. That’s what we say to this proposal, it’s malarkey!” said Max Richtman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“Mr. President and Members of Congress: keep the promises you made when you asked for our votes. Stop talking about cutting Social Security benefits,” said Hickey. “Stop talking about economic austerity. And get to work investing in jobs, growth, and rising incomes for working America.”

“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power.” Ah yes, the immortal words of philosopher Antonio Montana in his seminal work, “Scarface.”

Unfortunately, he has a point. Those who have the money in America do have the power. This is a real problem for those of us making more money from our own labor than from capital gains. A recent Demos report found that not only do the wealthy have different priorities than the rest of America, but also that their policy preferences carry vastly more weight than the preferences of the middle class, while the bottom third of Americans have essentially no influence over the preferences of their representative.

But is it not just individuals who have this power; by and large it is the corporations and their interests that drive the debates and outcomes on Capitol Hill.

Last year, the top 10 lobbying industries spent $1.3 billion in their efforts to pass favorable legislation and block the unfavorable. These groups subvert democracy by purchasing our legislators, and they are making major gains in killing efforts to make our country more open and fair. In Transparency International’s recent report ranking nations based on perceived corruption, the United States, the beacon of freedom for the world, placed 19th, behind nations like Singapore and Barbados, and just ahead of Chile, Uruguay, and the Bahamas.

Is it fair that you must make a large donation just to get a seat at the table, and that the largest donations get the most speaking time? No. Is there something we can do about it to voice our displeasure? Yes!

On April 13, the C-notes will be flowing from K Street to the Capitol. Cynics among you will say, “Thousands of dollars go from K Street to our members of Congress every day. What makes April 13th so special?” Well, for one thing, you’ll actually be able to see it, and for another, one of those Benjamins could be you.

United Republic has set up a 5k on April 13 to highlight the corruption of our elected officials and anyone who wants to keep money out of the Capitol is welcome to join. Runners will be wearing $100 bill costumes provided by United Republic.

Josh Silver, the CEO of United Republic, said that this race is “to bring attention to the fact that money runs Washington, and we are literally going to see money run Washington.”

United Republic is a group that shines a light on the corrupting influence of money in politics, and envisions a nation “where political decisions are made on principle, without the distorting effect of lobbyists.” One of its efforts currently is seeking passage of the American Anti-Corruption Act. According to its website, “The Act would transform how elections are financed, how lobbyists influence politics, and how political money is disclosed. It’s a sweeping proposal that would reshape the rules of American politics, and restore ordinary Americans as the most important stakeholders instead of major donors.”

This act was drawn up by former Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter and has the support of Jack Abramoff, the infamous lobbyist who knows as much about the ins and outs of bribery on Capitol Hill as anyone, and the disproportionate power money has in politics.

To participate in the K Street 5k, all you need to do is sign up here. The race begins at 2 p.m. on April 13, starting at Lafayette Park and ending on the Capitol steps. Once there, a medal will be offered to the Capitol Police for preventing money from entering the Capitol.

Participants are able to sign up as a team or individually, and receive some swag from sponsors such as soap from Dr. Bronner’s, because this is dirty (and if the weather permits, sweaty) money, energy bars from Raw Revolution, to provide the money with the energy to go to Congress, and ice cream to celebrate the end from Ben and Jerry’s.

Following the end of the race, there will be a rally to try to win the fight against the corporate interests on K Street. “There are going to be hundreds of grassroots activists from all different ideologies, liberal, independent and conservative, unifying on an issue they agree on, that democracy should not be auctioned off to the highest bidder,” said Silver.

So, amidst the cherry blossom events that will be going on that weekend, if you would like to make a statement about money in politics, receive some swag, dress up as a $100 bill and get some exercise to boot, sign up for the K Street 5k.

California Representative John Garamendi held a conference call today to build support for H.R. 949, The Invest in American Jobs Act of 2013, with the Campaign for America’s Future’s Robert Borosage and Dave Johnson. This bill, introduced last week, has bipartisan support and a goal that many Americans can get behind: ensuring that all the materials that go into taxpayer funded infrastructure investments be produced in America, creating American jobs.

“We need to make it clear that when we spend American taxpayer money, we are spending it on Americans,” said Rep. Garamendi, “we can then make significant progress on jobs.”

According to the summary of The Invest in American Jobs Act, the bill would help regain many of the 1.8 million construction jobs lost since the beginning of the recession, and help the approximately 24 million people who have lost their jobs. It would do this in several ways:

1. Requiring that all of the steel, iron and other goods used in infrastructure investment would be produced in the United States,
2. Increasing the required amount of American-sourced material in rolling stock (rail cars) from 60% under current law to 100% by 2017,
3. Applying “Buy America” standards to infrastructure investments that are not under these requirements, and
4. Requiring that any proposed waiver of “Buy America” standards have a public notice and allowing public commentary on the waiver before it takes effect.

This bill also provides $102 billion over the next two years for the funding of public transportation infrastructure projects.

Buy America and Made-in-America programs are incredibly popular. According to Consumer Reports, 78% of Americans would choose an American-made product over a similar product made overseas. Four out of five of those cited that American keeping American manufacturing strong and as a global player was a primary concern of theirs in their purchase. Even the quality of the American product is seen as superior worldwide, as a Boston Consulting Group study found that 60% of Chinese respondents would choose the American product over the cheaper Chinese version.

Representative Garamendi responded to this popularity, citing that even in the most conservative pockets of California’s 3rd District, Buy America policies got rousing applause. This is something that has universal popularity, a rare policy that American liberals and Tea Partiers can agree upon.

Also, they work. We have evidence that these policies are boosting manufacturing, and enacting these policies would only further help a recovering American economy.

Campaign for America’s Future co-director Bob Borosage introduced Rep. Garamendi, putting the issue in a broader context, saying that we need to put Americans back to work, and this is one such strategy to get Americans back into the workforce. “Our political debate is now over fixing the debt, not fixing the economy,” Borosage said.

“Let’s be clear,” Rep. Garamendi said, “America has lost 9 million manufacturing jobs over the last 25 years, we have seen the closings in the heart of America’s manufacturing sector that have led that area to have the title of the Rust Belt. National and state policies led to these closures, rewarding groups that shipped jobs overseas. Our strategy is to spend tax money on American equipment that would support American jobs.”

Reinvesting in jobs would also boost the American economy as a whole.

Garamendi went on to cite an example of his own state violating Buy America, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system choosing a bid that had 65% of American-made products over a bid that had 90% American. It did this by applying for a waiver that would allow them to bypass these Buy America standards. This choice saved BART $1 billion, but at the same time, that money could have been spent on American products and jobs, and the impact of those jobs being created could have offset the price difference. Since then, Garamendi helped implement a program where American products would get preferential treatment in contracts awarded by California infrastructure projects.

Preference does not mean absolute 100% American however, because the state could apply for a waiver to go for cheaper rail cars and steel. The Invest in American Jobs Act closes this loophole. The bill would require waivers to pass by the public, and Garamendi said that he wanted to make sure that the waivers that did pass the public scrutiny were “absolutely essential.”

Borosage warned that despite the American popularity, these policies face a fierce foreign lobby to prevent them. When asked about the groups that would be lining up against these changes in policy, Representative Garamendi called out foreign steel groups as being the primary culprits in attempting to lobby over this law. “They know that we would be taking American taxpayer money and spending it on Americans, rather than buying their product,” he said.

This a bill that has broad support in all levels of American politics, and one that could get American jobs back on track, as long as it is not derailed by foreign interests. If you also support this bill, call your representative to ensure that it gets to the president’s desk.

The news just keeps getting better for the millions of Americans making minimum wage. Today, three weeks to the day after President Obama called for raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour in the State of the Union address, two congressional Democrats have done him one better: Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller of California introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10, then tie the wage to the cost of living.

The bill would also increase wages for tipped workers, for whom the minimum wage is currently $2.13 an hour. This bill would increase their wages to at least seventy percent of the minimum wage.

The minimum wage has not been voted on since 2007, with the last raise raise going into effect in 2009. Tipped workers, such as waiters in restaurants, have not seen a minimum wage increase since 1991.

According to the National Employment Law Project’s fact sheet on the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, the bill would, if passed:

• Raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015, in three steps of 95 cents each.
• Adjust the minimum wage each year to keep pace with the rising cost of living starting in 2016 – a key policy reform known as “indexing,” which 10 states are already using to prevent the minimum wage from falling in value each year.
• Raise the minimum wage for tipped workers – which has been frozen at a meager $2.13 per hour for more than 20 years – to 70% of the minimum wage.

At the press conference announcing the bill at noon today, Harkin said that the key part of this bill would be to build opportunity for the people that perform essential functions for our everyday lives, and are rewarded by poverty. The senator noted that most of the people who earn a minimum wage are female, and that despite the idea that only teenagers earn this wage, almost 90 percent are adults.

Harkin reminded the audience of the rising child poverty numbers, and that many of these children had a parent who earned the minimum wage.

Miller followed Harkin, saying that income inequality in America threatens our economic security. This bill would, if passed, raise the pay of nearly a quarter of the working population, he said.

The lawmakers were joined by Margot Dorfman, the CEO of the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce; Andy Shallal, the owner of Washington-area restaurants Busboys & Poets and Eatonville; Amie Crawford, a Chicago fast-food worker, and Gregory Reynoso, a New York pizza delivery driver.

Dorfman and Shallal, at the heads of their respective businesses, dispelled myths associated with raising the minimum wage. Dorfman suggested that the right would trot out the old boogeyman of “raising the minimum wage would hurt small businesses.” This, she said, was a lie propagated by the large corporations that pay their workers minimum wage, the same corporations that can keep prices low and depend on smaller businesses paying their employees enough to buy products in the big box stores. Shallal railed against the National Restaurant Association (“The other NRA”), and said that from his experience in Washington, with Washington’s $8.25 minimum wage, restaurants were opening too quickly to visit them all. “When I want to provide a morale boost, I give a raise, and I think that we could all use a morale boost in this situation,” Shallal said. These are two business owners who get it.

Crawford and Reynoso’s stories painted a picture for the audience of what raising the minimum wage would mean for minimum wage workers.

For Reynoso, living in New York City, it would mean that perhaps his daughter could go to a better school, and his wife would be able to finish school. Instead of relying on food stamps some months, he could proudly put food on the table, much like he delivers to your door. Reynoso wants a higher minimum wage so that he could provide a better future for himself and his family.

Amie Crawford does not look so much into the future, but rather yearns for the past. She went to school, worked hard for 30 years, had a savings account, then moved to Chicago for family reasons. In Chicago, she could not find a job, so, to hold her over for the time being, she took a minimum wage job to feed herself. She is still in this position. She received a 50-cent raise, but will not get another. She makes $8.75 an hour, and her take-home pay in February was $788. In Chicago.

These are both people that have worked hard and played by the rules, yet barely get by.

Raising the minimum wage already faces an uphill battle against congressional Republicans and some conservative Democrats. The morning after President Obama announced his desire to raise the minimum wage, House Speaker John Boehner called the bill a non-starter, saying “when you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it.”

This reason for opposition is one that has been questioned by many in the progressive community. The evidence that raising the minimum wage will hurt workers is tenuous at best, a bald-faced lie at worst. While economists still do not agree on whether or not a higher minimum wage negatively affects employment, those skeptical have fallen from 60% in 1990 to 46% in 2000.

A November 2010 study published in the MIT Review of Economics and Statistics studied all pairs of counties that had a wage differences in a contiguous county and found “no adverse employment effects. We show that traditional approaches that do not account for local economic conditions tend to produce spurious negative effects due to spatial heterogeneities in employment trends that are unrelated to minimum wage policies. Our findings are robust to allowing for long-term effects of minimum wage changes.” In other words, sorry businesses, there is no good reason not to raise minimum wage, except to pocket the difference yourself.

The Economic Policy Institute has said that “the resulting impact on the overall economy would be demonstrably positive, as minimum-wage workers would spend their new earnings immediately, generating a positive impact on GDP and related modest employment growth.”

The reasons for not raising the minimum wage are reasons of greed. It has been proven that raising the minimum wage would not hurt job production, yet some on Capitol Hill refuse to believe these facts, protecting the CEOs that line their pockets on the backs of their employees.

When asked what he would say to the senators and representatives that oppose this bill, Harkin responded, “Do what’s right, do what’s just, do what’s fair.”

America is the richest country in the history of the world, it is a crazy notion to believe that we cannot afford to pay the people that make our lives easier enough to be above the poverty line.

To spread the word about the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, supporters are using the hashtag #timefor1010. If you believe that the people that cook and serve your food, take care of your children during daycare, and work in the service industry deserve the same right to get ahead as anyone else, help push this bill through to the president.

In the last several years, new economic terms have entered the American lexicon. Debt ceiling, fiscal cliff, sequestration. Well, we reached a deal on the first one, though it lowered our credit rating, and eventually took a few steps away from the fiscal cliff, though the economy contracted due to fear of this cliff.

Tomorrow, we run back up the edge, and get to the third term: Sequestration. The idea that everything must be cut a small amount if there is no solution. These across-the-board cuts were meant to be something akin to mutually assured destruction. The theory was, if you don’t work together, you’ll both lose. Now, both sides are saying that the sequester will happen, and neither team wants to play ball with the other, despite the fact that everyone basically agrees that sequestration is bad policy.

Sunday evening, the White House released a state-by-state analysis of what the sequester would do if it is indeed enacted. As these are automatic cuts without any sense of fairness to each state, everyone loses at an equal percentage, though that does not mean that they all lose equally. For example, California will lose $87,000,000 in education funding from sequestration, while Montana will lose $1,500,000. This equates to over a thousand jobs in California, and twenty jobs in Montana. Clearly, one state school system is more impacted than the other. California may have to shutter some schools, while Montana would only have to shuffle some teachers around. I believe that everyone should take a look at their state, and the impact of the sequester.

I am going to discuss my home state of North Carolina and how the sequester hits the state. North Carolina has its own problems, most prominently high unemployment, though this issue is compounded by a state that is finding itself politically. North Carolinians chose Barack Obama in 2008, elected Republicans to the state legislature for the first time in a century in 2010, and chose Mitt Romney in 2012 by a handful of votes. This is a state very much in flux.

Institutions for which North Carolina is probably best known include its military bases and its education system, particularly the robust university system. Several of the state’s eight bases, Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, are among the largest bases in the country. The University of North Carolina system was chartered in 1789 and opened its doors in 1793, the first public school in the country. These are points of pride for North Carolinians, but, under the sequester, would be cut. Let’s see how the sequester would affect these institutions, and how it relates to the biggest problem facing the state right now: unemployment.

The sequester would affect the military bases in the following ways:

• 22,000 civilian jobs would be furloughed, saving $117.5 million.
• Army base funding would be cut by $136 million, fourth most of any state.
• Air Force operations funding would be cut by $5 million.

The sequester would affect the education system by:

• Reducing funding by $25.4 million, risking 350 jobs, 38,000 students, and 80 schools
• Reducing $16.8 million in funding from teachers in special needs classes, risking 200 jobs
• Reducing the number of students that receive work-study jobs or financial aid by 2,000

All these numbers mean that the number of unemployed will grow – either through teachers and civilian Department of Defense employees losing their jobs or being furloughed, students unable to afford tuition and therefore joining the job market early, or students who never get the opportunity to finish secondary education, joining the workforce as early as possible.

Everyone is talking about jobs, and how jobs will lead to growth, but the sequester will only inhibit this growth.

Other measures that will cost North Carolinians their jobs if the sequester goes through on Friday:

• Up to 1,300 people could lose access to child care, making parents choose between working or caring for their child on their own.
• Job search assistance will be cut by $83,000, which hurts the job prospects of around 15,000 people.

Adding these numbers up, this equates to around 40,000 North Carolinians that will be struggling through furloughs, looking for work but cannot find it, unable to attend college to get the funds they require, therefore beginning the job search early, or getting laid off due to education spending cuts. Adding 40,000 people to the state’s unemployment rolls would undo about a year’s worth of progress, and with the new law that reduces benefits to those receiving unemployment insurance, this sequester is going to be disastrous for those in North Carolina that need help the most.

It is not just North Carolina, however. Check the White House’s site to see how your state will be affected.

We cannot cut our way out of this recession. Look to Europe if you believe that austerity is the way to prosperity. It has failed there, and will fail here. No amount of American exceptionalism will save the country from proven failed economics.

What we need is some good old-fashioned Keynesianism. You know, unleash government spending when in recession, decrease spending in a boom, the economic model that got the world out of the Great Depression. This is the way to the light. Recently, the International Monetary Fund admitted that austerity was not the best way out of the Great Recession, but rather the Keynesian model worked best. What we have been doing, and would further do if the sequester occurs, is going opposite to the historically proven ways to get out of recession.

What the sequester boils down to in the end is politics. It is, as I stated earlier, the nuclear option. If we can’t work something out, we all lose. However, there is one side that will lose more than another if the sequester happens: the GOP. They’re really in a no-win situation right now. If the sequester occurs, they get blamed, but if they allow taxes to increase again (remember, the fiscal cliff deal wasn’t a tax increase, then it apparently was), then the donors these politicians are beholden to will not be happy. We cannot play partisan politics when the future of the nation, and really the world, is on the line. When you choose to serve the country in one political nature or another, you take an oath, not to the party, not to your donors, but to the nation. We need leaders who are willing to step up to the plate at this crucial time and make the right decisions for our country.