With the Michigan primaries just one day away, the spotlight has been put back on the economic pain felt across the state. On MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" this Saturday, Demos' Bob Herbert posed the million dollar question to advocates and civic leaders from the hard-hit city of Detroit:
In a speech today before Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank, Steny Hoyer -- who is the second highest ranking Democrat in the House as Whip -- said that a big deficit reduction agreement would "provide the biggest single stimulus to the economy we could achieve. Setting our economy back on a sustainable, predictable fiscal path will help us create jobs by restoring certainty for businesses and enabling them to plan for a future without the brinksmanship that has characterized this Congress."
Get ready, after today's shooting at Chardon High School in Ohio, for yet another round of superficial analysis of what lies behind these deadly episodes. Media accounts of school shootings almost always focus on the availability of guns or, sometimes, on the influence of violent video games or other media.
Sometimes a bad statistic just won't die. Case in point: the endlessly repeated claim that half of all Americans pay no taxes and that this fact underscores how a dwindling band of hard working citizens is supporting a growing horde of free-loaders.
Just this week, this Hertigate Foundation released yet another report that stressed how many people aren't paying taxes. The report, The 2012 Index of Dependendence on Government, notes that:
In Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate in Arizona a predictable event occurred. When the issue of immigration came up--finally, after some 45 minutes--candidates fought to strike the harshest chord. Further, each candidate assured the base that they would not only drop the Federal lawsuits against Arizona’s harsh immigration laws but turn it into a national model.
Here’s another reason to not like Wall Street, as if we needed more: Gas prices are rising right now not just because of instability in the Middle East, but as a result of Wall Street speculators and traders. Recent reporting indicates that speculators and traders are holding on to a record number of gasoline contracts, equal to roughly 44 percent of U.S. inventories of gasoline.
Few would disagree that the United States needs to stay on the cutting edge of science and technology in order to remain a global economic powerhouse. Stop innovating in today's high-tech era and we'll be left behind by those countries that do.
Where there is ever less agreement, though, is what the proper role is for government in helping to spur innovation. No surprise there, since everything government does is now being fiercely contested.
At the University of Virginia, 17 students (now including a member of the school’s beloved athletic program) are entering the 7th day of a hunger strike, calling for living wages for all campus employees.
Physically large and in charge, Mike Daisey’s performance style suggests a peculiar combination of the late Spalding Gray and Lewis Black of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He sits at a table on a bare stage with some notes and a glass of water and simply tells his story; at times hysterically funny, at others, poignant, withering and accusatory. Some might find his manner a bit loud and overbearing: the night we were there last fall, media moguls Barry Diller and David Geffen were sitting a couple of rows in front of us and walked out after the first fifteen minutes or so.
In November of 2010, New York state’s Domestic Workers Bill of Rights—the first such law in the nation—went into effect, giving some 200,000 nannies, health aides, housekeepers, private cooks, and other at-home workers considerable power to address the poor conditions they often encounter in their unusual workplaces. Around the same time, the Urban Justice Center began holding a monthly legal clinic to help domestic workers file complaints.
Here is a question you shouldn't have to think on too hard.
What is a more likely scenario in the next ten or twenty years: A) the United States economy is dealt a grievous blow by an energy crisis that, say, is brought on by a disruption of oil supplies from the Persian Gulf; or B) the U.S. faces a military showdown with a foe that possesses more advanced weaponry than we do?
“It’s a disgrace that this is happening in a country as rich as ours,” former New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert said, describing what he called a “massive employment crisis” in the U.S.
Herbert, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the economic equality think tank Demos, delivered his lecture on “A Call to Civic Engagement” as part of SIPA’s Weston lecture series.
Ahead of the 20th UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June, Oxfam has released a discussion paper that presents a model that could help eradicate poverty while at the same time is environmentally sustainable.
The federal Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the State of New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD) violated Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) by improperly withholding voter registration applications from certain public assistance clients.
Thank you, members of the Committee for this opportunity to present testimony. I am a Senior Policy Analyst in the Economic Opportunity Program at Dēmos. We are a national, non-partisan research and advocacy organization, established in 2000 and headquartered in New York City. The Dēmos Economic Opportunity Program works to achieve a more equitable economy with opportunity for all.
Here we go again. Another holiday, another sale-explosion/shopping extravaganza. Can we stop and ask ourselves: Is buying more stuff, which we probably do not need and may very well not use, the best way to honor our Presidents?
A Vermont Partnership Bank will generate new revenue for Vermont, save local governments money, and make our small businesses, farms and consumers less vulnerable to cutbacks in lending in our state.
