Two weeks ago, the Census Bureau reported that poverty in America had grown to 15.1 percent, capturing 46.2 million Americans, including over 16 million (22 percent of) children. Further analysis revealed that there was growth in "deep poverty" -- 6.7 perecent of Americans, the most ever, are living at 50 percent of the poverty line. For a two parent, two child household, that's just $11,000.
Were Republicans listening?
There are a great many ways in which the "Buffett rule" is a very clever proposal. It highlights an appalling loophole in the tax code, aligns Obama with America's most successful investor, and has focused attention on how Obama wants to raise taxes on the truly well off, as opposed to all those upper-middle class households making just over $250,000.
If you've heard anything about Mayor Michael Bloomberg and taxes in the past 24 hours, it is surely that Bloomberg slapped down the "Buffett rule". Or as CBS News trumpeted, "Mayor Bloomberg Speaks Out Against President Obama's 'Buffett Rule.'"
The Republican push to end the Department of Energy’s (DoE) guaranteed loan program as part of their budget plan is misguided and counter-productive. The program was established in 2005, under the Bush Administration, to encourage development of new energy technologies that create jobs and bring us closer to energy independence.
One of the more frustrating, and fundamentally incorrect, arguments continually repeated during the attacks on Solydnra and clean energy investment is that government should not be in the business of “picking winners and losers,” meaning that the government shouldn’t provide incentives or subsidies to any specific industry or business. This argument is wrong both on a factual level and on a policy level.
With polls showing strong public support for tax hikes on the rich, Republicans should hardly relish a fight with President Obama over “class warfare.” And yet, for weeks, GOP leaders have been bashing the White House for a tax plan that affects just 2 percent of U.S. households and lets the rest of us off the hook.
How is this smart politics?
The New York Times ran a front page article this morning titled "As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge around Globe." Nicholas Kulish writes that across the globe, from Spain and Greece to Israel and India, political protests are being motivated not just by rising economic inequality but by a growing feelin
Republican leaders have been directing intense fire at Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on the richest Americans, including on millionaires and billionaires who now pay a relatively low rate on income from capital gains and dividends.
As it happens, though, rank-and-file Republicans think that Obama's proposals make a lot of sense. That's the finding of a poll released last week, funded by the SEIU and Daily Kos.
The latest example of conservative economic philosophy comes courtesy of Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) who stated, “We can’t compete with China to make solar panels and wind turbines,” implying we shouldn’t even try.
Pop quiz: What’s so bad about the financialization of the U.S. economy over recent decades?
If you’re like most people who are uneasy with the outsized power of finance, chances are you can’t boil down your concerns to a pithy sound bite. So why is there such ridicule of the protesters “occupying” Wall Street for lacking a coherent message?
One grievance of the protesters targeting Wall Street is that financial elites wield way too much power in our democracy. That complaint is hardly new, but the latest figures on money in politics tells a truly troubling story about the vast resources that Wall Street has put into shaping both the legislative process and elections.
Last month, the White House introduced a program that would effectively overhaul the tax code and, as Robert Kuttner put it, "locked [Obama] in as a defender of social insurance and working Americans." The five-pronged tax plan would cut rates and inefficient and unfair tax breaks, increase investment and growth in the United States, reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years and -- most contentiously -- institute the "Buffett rule."
Last week, the Department of State held its final public hearing on whether a Keystone XL pipeline should be built to bring crude oil from the Alberta, Canada tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline would be an extension of an existing pipeline and would be 1,700 miles long and run through six states. It would also support an environmentally destructive extractive industry that furthers the addiction to fossil fuels and detracts from a clean economic future.
Corporations are pushing hard to bring back billions in cash now stashed overseas at very low tax rates. They argue that, in effect, they should be able to avoid paying normal taxes on huge overseas profits because all sorts of great things will happen once this money comes home.
The last time that corporations won a repatriation holiday was in 2004, and so it's worth taking a close look at the effect of this holiday back then. A Senate committee has been doing just that, crunching numbers to closely scrutiny the effect of the 2004 law.
In case you haven't noticed, leading conservatives -- including Sarah Palin -- have been talking a lot lately about "crony capitalism." This phrase started turning up well before the hyped up Solyndra scandal and is now heard even more often.
A debate over the cozy ties between government and corporations is long overdue. Unfortunately, that is not the debate we are likely to get from the likes of Ron Paul and Sarah Palin.
