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Fiscal hawks love to remind us that interest payments on the national debt will be a major driver of future U.S. budget deficits. Just last week, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) published a doom-and-gloom paper that noted that interest payments were the single fastest growing part of the U.S. budget and the most volatile area of future spending.

Last week, we talked about the role that outside spending played in the New York City Council race and how of the 20 candidates Jobs for New York supported, 16 won. However, as Mark Schmitt at the New Republic pointed out, over half of the candidates Jobs for New York supported also had the support of the Working Families Party, who are often on the opposite side of the real estate debate.

The solutions necessary to revive and rebuild the middle class are not just choices to intervene after decades of standing by – they are also choices to stop intervening in ways that actively promote corporate interests over those of working people.

In the wake of the House Republicans 217 to 210 decision to cut food stamps it's worth revisiting how the 2000s were a lost decade for the poor. 

From the Census numbers released this week:

Food stamps were one of the few brights spots in a frayed social safety net. In 2012, one in five Americans were poor or near poor. The slight progress barely dented 2011's record high.

Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on Law and Governance heard testimony on Wednesday supporting charter amendments to extend wage protections for subcontracted city workers. The committee voted in support of the changes and the full Council could vote on it as early as this Thursday. Should it pass that vote, it will become a ballot referendum in May at the earliest.

If you're going to have a raucous, costumed march in New York City, Midtown makes for a great setting. Nurses and HIV activists in Robin Hood hats took the streets yesterday, blocking traffic as they called for a financial transaction tax to fully fund healthcare and other public services. Chants of “People, not profits! Medicare for all!” filled rush-hour streets as business-suited professionals dodged through the crowds. 

Weill Cornell Medical College last week accepted $100 million from the Weill Family Foundation to help "translate research breakthroughs into innovative treatments and therapies for patients.” More precisely: A college dean who also served on the board of a big-pharma firm while it defrauded Medicaid, bribed physicians, promoted off-label use of anti-psychotics and sent a library full of FDA regulations out with the garbage allowed one of the

For the back story of why newly announced protections for home care workers is so needed, we have to go back 75 years.

Earlier today I praised the Obama administration's move to extend labor protections, including overtime and the minimum wage, to some two million home aides. Now for the reality check: This step will surely increase the cost of caring for the aged and disabled at a time when millions of Baby Boomers are starting to retire, straining entitlement programs. What's more, hikes to the minimum wage—such as one recently enacted by California—will further boost home care costs.