The Jobs Crisis — Moving to Action: A Dialogue Between Workers and Policymakers

Entitlement !!!!

After Slamming Obama For Being ‘Anti-Manufacturing,’ Gingrich Campaign Caught Selling T-Shirts Made In El Salvador

In the latest embarrassment for Newt Gingrich’s floundering presidential campaign, an ABC producer discovered that Gingrich’s campaign T-shirts are not being made in America, but in El Salvador, even as Gingrich spends his time on the campaign trail calling American manufacturing “crucial” to the economy’s future. Gingich has also slammed the Obama administration for being “anti-manufacturing.”

Emergency Default Crisis Capitol Rally

Senate Bill 5 opponents get enough signatures to put issue on ballot

Columbus -- It's official: Senate Bill 5 is headed to the November ballot, giving Ohio voters the final say on the controversial collective bargaining package that drew thousands of protesters to the Statehouse during legislative deliberations earlier this year.

County elections boards verified and Secretary of State Jon Husted certified 915,456 signatures from about 1.3 million submitted on petitions by opponents of the new law.

Report: Obama And Boehner Agreed To Raise Medicare Eligibilty Age Before Debt Talks Broke Down

In what may be one of the most under-reported stories of the debt ceiling talks, Politico’s Jen Haberkorn notes that before negotiations broke down on Friday evening, President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner tentatively agreed to gradually raise the Medicare eligibility age as part of a “grand bargain” to increase the nation’s borrowing limit:

Details of the plan were not yet finalized before the Obama-Boehner talks collapsed on Friday. But in general, the agreement called for very gradually increasing the eligibility age from 65 to 67 over about two decades, according to administration and Republican congressional sources.

One pathway would call for increasing the age by one month per year beginning in 2017 until it reached 66 in 2029. In 2030, it would increase two months per year until it hit 67.

The administration’s willingness to entertain the idea may have given “a controversial idea more legitimacy and high-profile support than it’s ever gotten before,” Haberkorn observes, and it is likely to rile progressives who question the wisdom of the compromise.

Jacob Hacker, political science professor at Yale University, has called the scheme “the single worst idea for Medicare reform” since it “saves Medicare money only by shifting the cost burden onto older Americans caught between the old eligibility age and the new, as well as onto the employers and states that help fund their benefits.” Worse still, some seniors between the ages of 65 and 67 could “end up uninsured,” the Center on Budget And Policy Priorities’ Edwin Park predicted. Individuals “with incomes too high for premium subsidies in the exchange and those who qualify for only modest subsidies” could be priced out of affordable coverage, he warned.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, raising the eligibility age to 67 would cause an estimated net increase of $5.6 billion in out-of-pocket health insurance costs for beneficiaries who would have been otherwise covered by Medicare. Seniors in Medicare Part B would also face a 3 percent premium increase, the study found, since younger and healthier enrollees would be routed out of Medicare and into private insurance. Beneficiaries in health care reform’s exchanges would see a similar spike in premiums with the addition of the older population.

Federal cost savings, meanwhile, would be slim. The Congressional Budget Office studied the proposal when it was part of the House GOP’s budget plan and found it “would have little effect on the trajectory of Medicare’s long-term spending…because younger beneficiaries are healthier and thus less costly than the program’s average beneficiary.”

20: NUMBER OF STATES THAT MADE HEALTH CUTS IN 2012 BUDGETS

 A new Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) report finds that at least “20 states have made deep, identifiable cuts in health care that will reduce access to care for low-income children, seniors, families and people with disabilities.” According to the report, “Arizona has frozen enrollment in part of its Medicaid program, so that an estimated 100,000 low-income people who previously would have qualified will not be able to enter the program, and another 150,000 will face more stringent rules for retaining eligibility. Washington has frozen enrollment for a state-run health plan serving 60,000 low-income residents, which is expected to reduce the number of participants by 3,000 each year.”

Why All Of Our Friends Need To Know About This Great American Rip-Off

One Chart That Should Accompany All Debt Ceiling Discussions!!

If Corporations And The Rich Paid Taxes At The Same Level As The 1960s, The Debt Would Disappear

As congressional negotiators continue to debate the contents of a deficit reduction package, discussions are reportedly tiltingtoward a deal that will include spending cuts but no revenue increases.

Over at the Campaign for America’s Future, the Institute for Policy Studies’ (IPS) Sam Pizzigati notes that one way to very easily tackle U.S. debt going forward would be to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy to levels more closely matching mid-20th century rates. Pizzigati cites an IPS paperfrom last spring to make the argument that if corporations and households making more than $1 million paid the same rates as they did in 1961, our debt would virtually disappear in a decade:

Some numbers — from an Institute for Policy Studies report released this past spring — can help us better visualize just how monumental this political failure has been. If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year. In other words, if the federal government started taxing the wealthy and their corporations at the same rates in effect a half-century ago, the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade.

Taxing The Poor: The Only Tax Increase Republicans Support

Throughout the debate about raising the federal debt ceiling, Republicans have denied deal after deal because Democrats insist on adding new revenues to trillions of dollars in spending cuts. Republicans have opposed repealing oil and gas subsidies, removing a tax loophole for corporate jet owners, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and all other forms of revenue Democrats have suggested. Raising taxes in a weak economy, they argue, is unthinkable — even if conservative patriarch Ronald Reagan did just that.

But there is one tax increase some Republicans seem to favor: raising taxes on the working poor, senior citizens, and other low-income Americans.

BMW Declares War On Local 495 Members

After taking $3.6 billion in secret bailout loans, BMW is making a mockery of U.S. plant closing laws by firing its parts distribution workers in Ontario, California and replacing them with outsourced workers the very same day.

BMW would never treat German workers and communities this way. Watch the video and read the stories below as these workers fight to save their jobs and America protests BMW greed

Social Security Didn't Create the Deficit

HELP STOP CORPORATE GREED!!!!

Tell the manager of your Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs or Food 4 Less that you won't shop there if there is a strike.

While these companies make big profits they are asking for workers to take pay cuts as well as cuts in their Medical coverage. These hard working families deserve a good standard of living and good medical coverage.

Workers protest Hyatt hotels across the country

 

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Eric

It’s not often that you hear “Honolulu” and “protest” in the same sentence. Buttoday in Honolulu, hotel workers and supportive members of the community pulled up beds outside the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort to protest work conditions and low pay. Workers joined members of their union, Unite Here, across the country to fight Hyatt’s tactics of hiring low-paid temporary workers to replace union workers and forcing the remaining workers to do twice the work.

Stop Union-Busting at FedEx Ground! National Day of Solidarity, Saturday, July 23

Package handlers at the FedEx Ground warehouse in Brockton, Massachusetts are fighting to form a union. If the workers win the union election, scheduled for August 3rd, it will be the first time package handlers have ever won a union a FedEx. Over the next three weeks, these workers face a David versus Goliath type of struggle to overcome FedEx’s vicious anti-union campaign. That's why we are appealing for the full support of working people everywhere by urgently organizing solidarity actions in your area, targeting FedEx locations on July 22-23. Then sign the solidarity petition and pass it on. Their fight is our fight!

Warehouse Workers United Rally and Press Event at San Bernardino Cal/OSHA Offices on Tuesday, July 26th

On Tuesday, July 26, WWU will take action against employers that put the health and safety of warehouse workers at risk. Join us for a press event and rally in front of the Cal/OSHA offices in San Bernardino, where we’ll send the Inland Empire warehouse industry a message that workers will no longer keep these abuses quiet. Join us!

Tuesday, July 26th

11:30am

San Bernardino Cal/OSHA Offices

464 W 4th St

San Bernardino

(near 4th and North E St)

29 Companies Had More Cash Than The U.S. Treasury As Of July 13

As of July 13, 29 public companies had more cash on hand than the U.S. Treasury Department, according to the site Zero Hedge based on numbers from Capital IQ. It’s a stark reminder that if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, the government won’t have nearly enough money to continue funding essential services and programs.

In the first half of July alone, Treasury cash balances were depleted from from $130 billion to just $39 billion. That means the most powerful nation on earth currently is tied with Google for the amount of cash that it has, and is less flush than Bank of America, JP Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, among others.

American companies are highlighted in yellow.

Two of the top three companies are Chinese, while Bank of America comes in third. The numbers effectively rebut Republican claims that the government has plenty of money to keep funding essential services while paying down its debt. It also belies GOP claims that companies are in need of lower corporate taxes. American corporations have a record amount of cash — they are just refusing to invest domestically whilelobbying for tax breaks.

Several Republican candidates have called for drastically lowering the corporate tax rate, while congressional Republicans are refusing to concede in debt ceiling negotiations that corporate tax loopholes should be closed to give the government more much-needed revenue.

The Treasury’s cash balances will go back up once more revenue comes in, but on Aug. 3, the government’s savings account will be nearly empty and President Obama would be relying on daily tax revenue to pay the nation’s bills. But there won’t be enough — in fact, there would be a $134 billion shortfall in August alone. The small amount of money available to the Treasury will leave the government facing impossible choicesabout what to cut.

Wisconsin upset with Paul Ryan, too

You might have heard about Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's incident in Washington DC when he was observed drinking outrageously expensive wine after proposing cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  The wine was more expensive than the wages a two-income family would earn on minimum wage in an entire week.

USAction decided to show Rep. Ryan what his constituents think about the cuts.  So the set up a wine tasting outside his Racine office and asked ordinary Wisconsinites to share their own wtories about the effect the Ryan cuts would have.

Debt Political Theater Diverts Attention While Americans' Wealth is Stolen

No Class Warefare Here...

by Harold Meyerson

Whenever liberals note that the rich are getting richer while everyone else is either treading water or sinking, or that profits are up while wages are down, or, worse yet, that profits are up because wages are down, those liberals are invariably accused by conservatives of fomenting class warfare.

1000 Cuts

SDS: Students and Youth March to Save Our Schools! July 28-31, Washington D.C.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is calling on SDS members, students, and youth to travel to Washington D.C. on July 28-31st to participate in the conference and march to Save Our Schools organized and endorsed by a diverse & growing group of organizations (www.saveourschoolsmarch.org).

Romney: Jobless Americans Have To Bear Burden Of Budget Cuts Because Corporations Need A Tax Cut

A member of the local Rotary Club stood yesterday to ask former Mass Gov. Mitt Rommey (R) a question weighing on the minds of millions of jobless Americans:  At a time when corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash, why are teh Americans who can least afford it being asked to shoulder the burden of trillions of dollars in potential budget cuts?

11 Things the Wealthiest Americans Could Buy For The U.S. that Most Families Can't Afford For Themselves.

Invest in America

LIE #4 from "Rebuild the Dream" w/ Van Jones

Walker Shouted Down at Gateway Technical College 7/12/11

     On the date of the Wisconsin recall primary elections, where six Democratic candidates easily won over their Walker-supporting fake Democratic rivals, Gov. Scott Walker gave a speech at Gateway Technical College During their centenial celebration.
     But Walker met with an angry response from the assembled students, teachers, and graduates of the college. Over half the attendees jeered at Walker, drowning out his speech.  Others turned their backs or simply walked away as he spoke.
     It took a consideerable amount of gall for Walker to give a speech commemorating the one hundred year anniversary of the oldest technical college in the country.  Walker's budget slashed state funding for technical schools all around the state, and he pushed through radical measures to cut the legs out from teachers and instructors.

"It's insulting to all fo the students, staff and businesses who depend on technical colleges to have someone who just slashed our funding by 30 percent," said Michael Rosen, a state board member with the Wisconsin Technical College System.  "He can't be seriously attending, this celebration," he said.

     Less than four months from today, United Wisconsin will begin circulating petitions to initiate a recall of Gov. Walker.

Cantor: Taxing The Rich Is Off The Table, But Making Students Pay More Immediately Is Fine

One of the major demands that almost all congressional Republicans have made about deficit reduction is that wealthier Americans and large corporations shouldn’t have to pay any more in taxes. “The House has taken a firm position against anything having to do with increasing taxes or raising tax rates,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) at the onset of negotiations over the budget deficit in May.

Yet as the Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz reports, one group that Cantor is apparently fine with making pay more is American college students. Cantor, at the White House for budget negotiations, apparently proposed that students who take out student loans should immediately start paying interest, rather than getting to make payments after graduation:

As Monday’s White House budget talks got down to the nitty-gritty, Eric Cantor proposed a series of spending cuts, one of them aimed squarely at college students. The House majority leader, who did most of the talking for the Republican side, said those taking out student loans should start paying interest right away, rather than being able to defer payments until after graduation. It is a big-ticket item that would save $40 billion over 10 years.

According to Kurtz, Obama rejected Cantor’s proposal out of hand, saying that he didn’t want to “screw students.” Cantor’s proposal comes at a time when American students are already overwhelmed by student loan debt. In 2008, the average debt that a college student graduated with was a whopping $23,000. American students continue to pay more than most of their developed world neighbors for a college education, and Cantor apparently wants to make it even more difficult for them while not touching the richest Americans.

Tell President Obama to Stop Medicare Hostage Taking!!!

Click here to sign the petition

How the Middle Class Got Screwed

Dear Mr. President...

Reich Connects the Economic Dots

The End of the American Dream?

Hundreds of teachers laid off!!

Once again Big Business gets Tax breaks and our children suffer

How many families have to suffer because if their greed?

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) challenged on taxes, oil subsidies

CEO's Of Largest U.S. Companies Received 23 Percent Pay Raise Last Year

Corporate Taxes: 1995 vs 2010

What's wrong with this picture?

Minnesota: Shutdown stress begins for state workers, others

St. Paul, Minn. — Some 22,000 state workers are at home today. So are families who would have been at the Minnesota Zoo or camping in a state park.

Who Owns our Debt?