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A new report released today by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Ohio reveals the deep ties between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Ohio’s legislature. Through a side-by-side comparison of ALEC legislative models and actual Ohio bills, the report shows how Ohio’s legislators are working in tandem with corporate leaders to deregulate key industries, privatize education and dismantle unions.
The Federal Reserve is tasked not only with combating inflation, but also with a mandate to keep unemployment low. ...
Back in November 2010, GOP officials were so concerned that the Fed might try to lower the unemployment rate they called for legislation [linik] to change the Federal Reserve's mandate -- the Board of Governors could think about inflation, but would be expected to ignore jobs.
Nearly a year-and-a-half later, the Republican fear that the Fed might lower unemployment hasn't gone away. ...
Republicans aren't arguing that the Fed is bad at lowering unemployment, and they're not arguing that the Fed is incapable of lowering unemployment; GOP lawmakers are saying the Fed shouldn't even try to address the jobless rate in the midst of a jobs crisis.
Alex Gourevitch has a recent post that brings up an excellent point. So much of our conversation on changes over the past thirty years describes what is going on at the median or average value. There’s an active debate on whether or not median incomes have stagnated and what that means. But there’s little focus on what is going on at the bottom end of the distribution and less discussion of the wealth distribution.
...notice the strong gains in income for those at the bottom in the late 1990s – full employment really does raise all boats.
...whatever is going on for the average American, there are a huge group of Americans worse off, in absolute and relative terms, in the wages they get in the current market economy and with the wealth they’ve tried to build.
[The word "faculty" is being used here to mean "capability", not "group of teachers". -L]
I love when economics is so squarely focused on the problem that a poor person might get away with something. To clarify [Francis Walker], if two people are identical, but one is a teacher and the other works for Wall Street, they should pay the same taxes – specifically the teacher should pay the high rates that the Wall Street person does. Why? Because, the teacher is capable of making Wall Street money but chooses not to work on Wall Street, instead choosing less remunerative work. His or her “social and industrial delinquency” (a phrase I promise to use more) is an “evil behavior” that punishes the whole of society by preventing productive work from being done, and it shouldn’t be rewarded by the tax code.
Economic inequality isn’t inherently a racial issue, and rising inequality would be disturbing even if there weren’t a racial dimension. But American society being what it is, there are racial implications to the way our incomes have been pulling apart. And in any case, King — who was campaigning for higher wages when he was assassinated — would surely have considered soaring inequality an evil to be opposed.
The ongoing Dem attack on Romney’s Bain years — which will figure heavily in the general election — could help decide whether Obama can hold blue collar white voters in the numbers he needs. Given that these voters have born the brunt of the economic meltdown, it’s interesting that the GOP is set to nominate a candidate who got very rich partly off the sort of layoffs that helped decimate their communities; pays a lower tax rate than many middle class taxpayers because of investments but won’t release his tax returns; and refuses to say whether concerns about inequality and Wall Street excess are rooted in anything but “envy.”
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has announced a major assault on the food stamp program that feeds 1.8 million Pennsylvanians, including 439,245 in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare announced that on May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets will be barred from receiving food stamps. People over 60 would have a $3,250 cap. ...
Conservatives frequently bristle at the idea that poor people might have nice things while receiving public assistance ("they have a television on welfare!"). But Pennsylvania will now create the most bizarre of disincentives: dissuading poor people from saving.
Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.
The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.
"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too `rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.
Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum explained to the Texas-based King Street Patriots on Monday night that his “Registering The Poor To Vote Is Un-American” article may have been “indelicately worded” but said his larger point stands.
“Why do I hate democracy and the poor?” Vadum joked, clarifying that he “wasn’t saying that people shouldn’t have the right to vote if they’re poor.”
He went on to criticize the National Voter Registration Act (also known as the “Motor Voter” act) calling it “an evil thing” that was “created to muck up” the election process.
The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high - 1 in 15 people - spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.
New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty.
In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America.
On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. ...
The party is the firm’s big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can’t tell you how people dressed for this year’s party, but I can tell you about last year’s.
That’s because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year’s party.
The Congressional Budget Office has officially confirmed what we already knew: The income distribution has been getting more unequal in recent decades. A new report (PDF) on changes in the distribution of income from 1979 to 2007 shows that average income for the top 1 percent "grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007." In the same time period, the rest of the top 20 percent saw their average income grow by 65 percent. Those in the middle—60 percent of Americans—had average income growth of just under 40 percent. And, of course, the 20 percent with the lowest income saw the smallest income growth between 1979 and 2007, at just 18 percent.
Government policy increased the tilt toward the very richest:...
...when it comes to collecting on student loans, the government can take funds from your Social Security check. ...this is...a radical break in the social contract with no equivalent for private debts. ...
In a dynamic economy, education should be risky — whole occupations and industries come and go with technology, and what was a wise investment at one point is a bad one later on. But there need to be rules for what happens when these risks go bad. We have removed every last rule on this kind of debt. ...
Because of legal choices we’ve made... [student loan debt] stays forever, is virtually impossible to discharge under hardship, churns fees when it goes bad... Meanwhile, we have a Great Depression-like event that is throwing college graduates into a labor market that is far too weak.
On Tuesday, over 300 members of the Colorado Progressive Coalition (CPC) went to Wells Fargo -- the state's largest bank -- to close their accounts. The mass action was in protest of the bank's predatory lending habits, along with its refusal to stop foreclosure proceedings after admitting to shady practices like "robo-signing." ...
The actions are part of the New Bottom Line, a national campaign that's looking to "restructure Wall Street" by demanding reforms from three major banks: Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase.
George Will should probably drag his sorry ass down to the Wall Street protests and ask some people about the "consent of the governed." ...
This is what happens when you have sustained high unemployment and the country's plutocrats and their political party refuse to even offer the hope that something can be done about it. We've had thirty years of Reaganomics in this country and nothing is trickling down... In 2009, when taxes were at their lowest level since 1950, the right decided we are all Taxed Enough Already and formed the TEA Party. Then they complained about the deficit. It's so stupid you could cry.
...after all the arguments have died down, taxes keep the pitchforks at bay.
There are plenty of grounds for legal action [against alleged Wall Street crooks]. Contrary to the Obama/Geithner position, this is a target rich environment. And some of the violations were persistent and deliberate enough that they might well raise to the level of being criminal. This is a mere illustrative tally: [specific list of regulations which have probably been broken] ...
As readers know, it isn’t that there is no case against the major banks, it’s that the Administration is determined not to make it. ...
Pretty much everyone who is not part of the problem instinctively knows that [a slew of public arrests] needed to happen. Yet Obama and other members of the elite keep trying to placate the protestors by acknowledging that they have legitimate concerns while refusing to take needed corrective steps.
Besides the rich getting richer, the poor are also getting much poorer. Fifteen percent of Americans now collect food stamps, and white Americans now have 20 times the wealth that black Americans do.
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