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NEW YORK -- The United States faces a retirement crisis that threatens future retirees and the next generation of workers. The voluntary employer-sponsored retirement system covers fewer and fewer Americans, often leaving Social Security, originally intended as a supplement to other forms of retirement, as the major source of income for 40 percent of older Americans. Even workers still covered by an employer retirement plan have had their benefits weakened.
If there is any silver lining to the mass destruction brought by Hurricane Sandy, it might be a renewed focus on the importance of infrastructure, and just how much our current systems -- of transit, energy, buildings, and much more -- are outdated and susceptible to another disaster. Government officials like New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo have spoken about the need for new protection, such as flood barriers. This is an important step, but is not a replacement for infrastructure upgrades that could stand up to the kind of harsh weather that America experiences more and more.
It's widely known that the U.S. is way out of step with the rest of the world in not having paid maternity leave. We are now one of only three nations—rich and poor - that don't guarantee job-protected time off with some amount of income after the birth of a child.
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the newest power-player in D.C. Founded by the beloved Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson (who are taking their act on the road to the tune of $40,000 dollars an appearance, around the average American's yearly income), Fix the Debt advocates a responsible solution to reducing our federal debt.
For most of its history ALEC has operated in the background, but its influence recently drew the spotlight when its promotion of “Stand Your Ground” laws came to light in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. Faced with the potential of consumer boycotts, corporate sponsors such as McDonald’s and Pepsi withdrew their support. Henceforth, the organization announced, it would concentrate on state econom
Every time that President Obama emphatically repeats that he won't raise taxes on anyone making under $200,000 a year, as he did yesterday, I can't help but wince. Promising the middle class -- and a good swath of the upper middle class -- that their taxes will never go up is politically cowardly, economically irresponsible, and a betrayal of the progressive belief in government.
The US Chamber of Commerce has been one of the most influential lobbying groups in our political system, in part due to the sheer volume of its spending. In the last year alone, the Chamber spent over $95 million lobbying and over $36 million on the last election cycle.
Lewis Powell wanted executives selling tires or aspirin to take on an additional job: selling capitalism itself. Today, the disparate strands of the progressive movement must learn the same lesson, advocating not just for people but for the very idea of the people. Ours is the world’s greatest experiment in democracy: to create one, mutually supporting community of interest out of ancestral strangers—geographically distant, multi-origin, multi-ethnic, multiracial. Our inability to do that has been the Achilles’ heel of liberalism. It’s why we are not yet the 99 percent.
If you follow the stock market, you'll notice that big public companies are paying out all sorts of special dividends early to avoid a dreaded hike in taxes on such earnings. If the Bush tax cuts lapse, the top dividend tax rate will rise from 15 percent today to 39.5 percent on January 1. Or, if President Obama gets his way, dividend tax rates will go up only for the top 2 percent of earners, while remaining unchanged for everyone else.
In other words, dividends will once more be taxed as regular income -- and that's how it should be.