As we swim through hundreds of stories daily, some days are more difficult than others to keep our heads above the metaphorical waterline. From Major League Baseball's possible lifetime ban of Alex Rodriguez, to George Zimmerman being stopped in Texas for speeding (with a gun in his car, of course), to the latest NSA hearing, and the continually less civil intra-party GOP war, Wednesday's pool of stories kept us from getting as much accomplished as we would have liked.
Thankfully though, a few things did get done in Washington, DC yesterday.
For once, the House did something shocking, by actually doing something. The lower chamber voted overwhelmingly to pass a bipartisan deal to keep student loan interest rates low, in the short term, while raising the rates later on. Frankly, we think some House members were willing to say yes to almost anything, just so they could get out of chambers and get their free Jamba Juice smoothies. Still - if that's what it takes to get Congress to actually do something, we know a certain PR person in DC that we're fairly sure would be willing to give out free smoothies every day.
There were also some meetings between Congressional Democrats and the President, and Speaker Boehner and House Republicans on Wednesday - and both get-togethers dealt partially with Obamacare.
Even with rising levels of Democratic frustration and serious opposition to President Obama trying to stuff Larry Summers in as new chief of the Fed, we'd much rather be dealing with the Democratic side of the DC divide than being part of the metaphorical drainplug that is the Republican Party right now.
As Greg Sargent noted on Wednesday, Speaker Boehner insisted in his meeting that House Republicans' plan to shut down the government in order to stop Obamacare will work. Privately, however, it's obvious that Boehner does not want to shut down the government over Obamacare - and neither do some key allies of Boehner in the Senate.
One such ally, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, even commissioned a report from the Congressional Research Service about government shutdowns and Obamacare. As Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post reported and Wonkblog's Sarah Kliff confirmed, the CRS made it clear: Even if Republicans shut down the government, certain agencies tasked with implementing Obamacare will still keep floating along.
That may not be the case for either Speaker Boehner or the GOP.
As Steve Benen pointed out, Boehner can't even seem to understand polls that say how much he's disliked right now. That isn't surprising in light of a new poll from Pew Research which confirmed that Republican voters can't even decide what direction they want their party to go, or who they want to lead. The only thing Republicans seem to agree on is that they're mad.
Frankly, we don't disagree with them on that, though we're almost certain their definition of mad and ours aren't quite the same thing in this case.
After all, when it's obvious to any sane observer that a specific political party has permanently lost the policy battle on a specific issue like universal health care insurance, why would that party's leader keep pretending to fight for that lost cause? That's especially true if the people surrounding that leader will crucify the leader if they find out about the betrayal.
Trying to stop progress from flowing forward is like trying to stop the ocean from flowing through a seawall - and we're very glad we're not the ones stuck in the metaphorical drainhole.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Crocodile Tears From The Corporate Right
If you're tired of talking about inequality now, we have a feeling that by the time August gets done you'll be ready to do whatever it takes to get politicians to make inequality go away - which may indeed be part of the President's broader plan.
The fact is, severe inequality is at the root of nearly every major political dispute going on in America right now - which is why President Obama is absolutely correct in focusing on trying to solve it.
We're well aware that Republicans and those on the corporate right want the discussion of this topic to go away. They're already bawling crocodile tears to right-wing media outlets about one part of the President's "Grand bargain for middle-class jobs' that he laid out in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Tuesday.
As the President himself admitted, parts of that plan are items he's already offered in the past, multiple times. For example, the President's proposal to drop the top corporate tax rate, in exchange for closing tax loopholes that corporations use to get out of paying their taxes, is one he's made before, repeatedly.
One of the newer pieces of the President's plan, however, is the prevalence of the idea of an increase in the minimum wage, to effectively make it a living wage. Of course, as soon as the corporate right hears this phrase, they immediately explode into tears as fake as their concern for the working class of America.
As Jamelle Bouie pointed out on Tuesday, business in America would actually really like to have a plan like the one President Obama suggested at the Amazon warehouse in Kentucky on Tuesday. When corporate tax rates fall and the government invests in new infrastructure, business gets a win-win situation.
Ironically, as Bouie also pointed out, American corporate executives want the kinds of jobs that Amazon became notorious for in 2012, when investigative journalist Mac McClelland exposed Amazon's warehouses as less then desirable places to work.
The key fact remains, however, that in an economy fueled by consumer spending, if consumers don't have money to spend, that economy will be running on fumes. If those consumers have enough money to live decently, those consumers - who are also often the workers for companies in that economy - will go out and spend that money, and the company will end up making more money and being more successful.
Contrary to right-wing blowhards, raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment. As a new study shows, if corporations like McDonalds used their resources wisely, for less than 70 cents more per Big Mac, the entire company could double the salaries of every low-wage worker in their company.
To anyone not blinded by partisan rhetoric and classist weeping, President Obama's plan for middle class jobs is a big win for Americans of all economic classes and American businesses too. That still won't prevent the corporate right from bawling those crocodile tears to their propaganda outlets.
If you'd like to stop their hypocritical blubbering though, we recommend you do as the President did in Chattanooga: Ask them to present their own alternative plan that will help working poor of America.
We'll guarantee then all you'll hear from the right is silence...
The fact is, severe inequality is at the root of nearly every major political dispute going on in America right now - which is why President Obama is absolutely correct in focusing on trying to solve it.
We're well aware that Republicans and those on the corporate right want the discussion of this topic to go away. They're already bawling crocodile tears to right-wing media outlets about one part of the President's "Grand bargain for middle-class jobs' that he laid out in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Tuesday.
As the President himself admitted, parts of that plan are items he's already offered in the past, multiple times. For example, the President's proposal to drop the top corporate tax rate, in exchange for closing tax loopholes that corporations use to get out of paying their taxes, is one he's made before, repeatedly.
One of the newer pieces of the President's plan, however, is the prevalence of the idea of an increase in the minimum wage, to effectively make it a living wage. Of course, as soon as the corporate right hears this phrase, they immediately explode into tears as fake as their concern for the working class of America.
As Jamelle Bouie pointed out on Tuesday, business in America would actually really like to have a plan like the one President Obama suggested at the Amazon warehouse in Kentucky on Tuesday. When corporate tax rates fall and the government invests in new infrastructure, business gets a win-win situation.
Ironically, as Bouie also pointed out, American corporate executives want the kinds of jobs that Amazon became notorious for in 2012, when investigative journalist Mac McClelland exposed Amazon's warehouses as less then desirable places to work.
The key fact remains, however, that in an economy fueled by consumer spending, if consumers don't have money to spend, that economy will be running on fumes. If those consumers have enough money to live decently, those consumers - who are also often the workers for companies in that economy - will go out and spend that money, and the company will end up making more money and being more successful.
Contrary to right-wing blowhards, raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment. As a new study shows, if corporations like McDonalds used their resources wisely, for less than 70 cents more per Big Mac, the entire company could double the salaries of every low-wage worker in their company.
To anyone not blinded by partisan rhetoric and classist weeping, President Obama's plan for middle class jobs is a big win for Americans of all economic classes and American businesses too. That still won't prevent the corporate right from bawling those crocodile tears to their propaganda outlets.
If you'd like to stop their hypocritical blubbering though, we recommend you do as the President did in Chattanooga: Ask them to present their own alternative plan that will help working poor of America.
We'll guarantee then all you'll hear from the right is silence...
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
The American Dream, Hijacked
It's not often these days that we focus on a topic two days in a row. However, with a topic as important as inequality, we didn't think we could do any less.
It's not an exaggeration when we say poverty, brought on by inequality, is one of the single most damaging things Americans are doing to each other, and our nation. To say the kind of poverty that steals stable retirement from older Americans, home ownership from middle-aged Americans, and the entire future of America from our young is a monster is actually understating things a bit.
In fact, according to the results of a decades old study, first written about earlier this month in the Philadelphia Enquirer, children born into severe poverty actually fare worse than babies born to crack-addicted mothers.
That's right - poverty is a worse monster than crack.
That monster, right now, is destroying the American dream, as we pointed out in our commentary Monday, and as President Obama is planning to highlight multiple times a week, every week, for the near-term future.
Even in the face of both the Associated Press study, and the Philadelphia study, there are still those people who will insist such a monster is just a figment of one's imagination, a nightmare that will affect somebody else over the next few years. Many Americans, however, already acknowledge that inequality-based poverty is a waking nightmare.
According to the Pew Research Center, one third of Americans now say they're no longer part of the middle class - they see themselves in the lower economic classes in America, and they don't see that changing anytime soon.
Sadly, a Harvard study, featured in the New York Times online last week, confirms what all of the other studies have said. It's not just your own ability or motivation that determines if you or your child (or your grandchild) can grow up to be successful, healthy, and prosperous anymore. Where you and your children were born - both as a matter of geography and as a matter of economics - determines your access to opportunity and success more than any other single factor.
When the 400 richest people in America are now wealthier than the bottom 60% of the rest of the country, this is a nation out of balance.
It's not a wonder, then, that a growing movement of America's fast food workers, in order to fight for a living wage for a fair day's work, is ending up in one-day strikes, at locations across the nation. For people willing to work two and sometimes three jobs, doing the kinds of work most Americans might find beneath them, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they're angry. Inequality in America right now, to them, means that no matter how hard they try, it's not currently possible for most of them to have the opportunity to improve their lot in life.
Anyone who knows their history can tell you - this kind of nightmare often leads to an even more grotesque vision of horrors, as the aristocracy found when the people rose up in the days of the French Revolution.
Let's hope Americans wake up sooner, rather than later, because right now, the American dream is only a dream for most, while reality is a nightmarish monster.
It's not an exaggeration when we say poverty, brought on by inequality, is one of the single most damaging things Americans are doing to each other, and our nation. To say the kind of poverty that steals stable retirement from older Americans, home ownership from middle-aged Americans, and the entire future of America from our young is a monster is actually understating things a bit.
In fact, according to the results of a decades old study, first written about earlier this month in the Philadelphia Enquirer, children born into severe poverty actually fare worse than babies born to crack-addicted mothers.
That's right - poverty is a worse monster than crack.
That monster, right now, is destroying the American dream, as we pointed out in our commentary Monday, and as President Obama is planning to highlight multiple times a week, every week, for the near-term future.
Even in the face of both the Associated Press study, and the Philadelphia study, there are still those people who will insist such a monster is just a figment of one's imagination, a nightmare that will affect somebody else over the next few years. Many Americans, however, already acknowledge that inequality-based poverty is a waking nightmare.
According to the Pew Research Center, one third of Americans now say they're no longer part of the middle class - they see themselves in the lower economic classes in America, and they don't see that changing anytime soon.
Sadly, a Harvard study, featured in the New York Times online last week, confirms what all of the other studies have said. It's not just your own ability or motivation that determines if you or your child (or your grandchild) can grow up to be successful, healthy, and prosperous anymore. Where you and your children were born - both as a matter of geography and as a matter of economics - determines your access to opportunity and success more than any other single factor.
When the 400 richest people in America are now wealthier than the bottom 60% of the rest of the country, this is a nation out of balance.
It's not a wonder, then, that a growing movement of America's fast food workers, in order to fight for a living wage for a fair day's work, is ending up in one-day strikes, at locations across the nation. For people willing to work two and sometimes three jobs, doing the kinds of work most Americans might find beneath them, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they're angry. Inequality in America right now, to them, means that no matter how hard they try, it's not currently possible for most of them to have the opportunity to improve their lot in life.
Anyone who knows their history can tell you - this kind of nightmare often leads to an even more grotesque vision of horrors, as the aristocracy found when the people rose up in the days of the French Revolution.
Let's hope Americans wake up sooner, rather than later, because right now, the American dream is only a dream for most, while reality is a nightmarish monster.
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