To force unpopular and wrong-headed cuts in Social Security and Medicare, the Republican House caucus used their retreat to line up new rounds of fiscal hostage-taking. First up on March 1 is the sequester – deep, indiscriminate and immediate cuts of about 8 percent of military spending and 5 percent of domestic services in the remaining seven months of the fiscal year. Then comes the threat to shut down the government with the expiration of the continuing budget resolution and then another threat to default on the nation’s obligations with a debt ceiling crisis beginning in mid-May.
Read Post
Despite nearly three years of growth, we have over 20 million people in need of full-time work. Wages are declining. This economy is not working for working people. To recover from this economic downturn, we requires more than a short-term stimulus and certainly not more ruinous austerity. It requires a new strategy for growth in [...]
Read Post
The U.S. economy shrank unexpectedly in the last three months of 2012, ending over 30 months of economic growth. Exports lagged, reflecting, in part, declining markets in Europe, now suffering a costly recession inflicted by misguided austerity policies. But the greatest cause of the decline was unexpectedly large cuts in government spending, particularly in the military.
Read Post
The United States is in the midst of the most protracted unemployment crisis in modern history, and for vast segments of the population, the recession has never ended. Wages are still sinking; more than 20 million people are in need of full-time work. Yet, the national debate is fixated on fixing the debt rather than [...]
Read Post
Holding America hostage is no way to negotiate a budget. The president should simply say no more. Demand that the debt ceiling be lifted for two years without conditions. Call for legislation to revoke the ruinous sequester cuts. Demand that Congress fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. It’s time to call a halt to this foolishness – and let Americans understand who is sabotaging jobs and growth. Let Americans hold the hostage takers to account.
Read Post
F. Scott Fitzgerald warned, “There are no second acts in American lives.” And for recent American presidents, second acts have been brutal. The hope of the first act succumbs to the karmic reckonings of the second. Nixon cast out by his crimes in Watergate. Reagan laid low by his Iran Contra follies. Clinton shamed from [...]
Read Post
The December Jobs Report is a warning to Washington: This economy is growing – with 155,000 new jobs and 7.8 percent unemployment. But that’s barely enough to cover the new workers coming in to the workforce.
Now every working American will face an increase in their payroll taxes. Spending at the Federal level will continue to slow. With the winding down of the Recovery Act and the cuts imposed by the last debt ceiling deal, Congress and the President should stop focusing on deficits and start working to create jobs and get Americans back to work.
Read Post
Washington is careening off the fiscal cliff smack into the debt ceiling. These mind-numbing mixed metaphors are not the currency of a well-governed nation. Once more, Washington is fixated on what and how to cut. Once more, the media is clamoring for a deal, for “shared sacrifice.” Once more, Republicans have indicated that they are [...]
Read Post
Early this morning, the Senate passed the fiscal cliff deal by 89-8, a margin virtually guaranteeing that it will survive in the House. The deal has some good parts. It lets the Bush tax cuts expire on the wealthy, raises the estate tax marginally and increases taxes on capital gains and dividends a bit. Unemployment benefits are extended for a year. Tax boosts for the low paid workers – the child tax credit, expanded earned income credit, refundable tuition tax credits – are extended, if only for five years. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not touched. But no one should be fooled. This is an ugly deal, with foul implications for the coming months.
Read Post
Senator Jeff Merkley, one of the handful of independent stalwarts on bank reform, today blasted the Attorney General for the Justice Department’s apparent policy of giving big bankers a “get out of jail free” card. As he notes British bank HSBC admitted to serial violations of laundering drug money and Iranian terrorist money, ending with [...]
Read Post
