By Craig Cheslog, on March 4th, 2012%
The San Ramon Valley Democratic Club's Thursday, March 22, meeting will feature a presentation by Michael Lighty, Director of Public Policy for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, about its "Heal America. Tax Wall Street" program to fund jobs, guaranteed healthcare, and a secure retirement for all.
The meeting will take place at the Crow Canyon Country Club, 711 Silver Lake Drive, in Danville. Social time at 6:15 p.m., dinner at 6:45 p.m., with the program at 7:15 p.m. Members and invited guests can enjoy the dinner and program for $25, non-members $30, presentation only is $5 (requested donation).
Lighty has spoken and organized throughout the country on healthcare reform, financing and delivery issues. He coordinated CNA’s campaigns for HMO patients’ bill of rights, clean money elections, and . . . → Read More: Taxing Wall Street to Heal America Focus of San Ramon Valley Democratic Club’s March 22 Meeting
By Craig Cheslog, on July 30th, 2011%
With Republican politicians and the Tea Party movement pretending that all budget matters began the day President Obama was inaugurated, Paul Begala takes the time to set the record straight about how the GOP's policies have driven our nation into the fiscal ground.
As he reminds us, President Clinton presided over the first balanced budgets in decades. When he left office, there was black ink projected for years to come. The chairman of the Federal Reserve was even worried about what would happen when the nation had no bonds left to sell. As Begala notes:
Indeed, experts projected surpluses as far as the eye could see. $5.7 trillion in surpluses, to be exact. The surpluses were so strong that deep into the future—in 2009—the entire national debt was . . . → Read More: How Republicans Squandered Trillions of Surpluses
By Craig Cheslog, on July 28th, 2011%
Tweet observation of the day from the Center for American Progress' Jared Bernstein (I've expanded it below to remove the abbreviated text tweets sometimes require):
You need strong facial muscles to say with a straight face Republican claim that uncertainty hurts economy YET we should increase the debt limit in not 1 but 2 steps.
Almost makes one think there's something disingenuous about that "uncertainty" . . . → Read More: Uncertainty Hurts Only Sometimes
By Craig Cheslog, on July 14th, 2011%
Economist Jared Bernstein has compiled a useful graph of federal government revenues and spending from 1981-2010. While all of the debate is over the spending side of the ledger, revenues are also far below their historic norm.
If balancing the budget is important, the conversation must include revenues. Otherwise we should assume the real debate is not over balancing . . . → Read More: Misleading Rhetoric on Taxes
By Craig Cheslog, on July 12th, 2011%
If helping the economy recover was a higher priority than drowning government in a bathtub, our political leaders probably would have avoided killing nearly 500,000 public sector jobs in the middle of an economic . . . → Read More: Budget Cutting: The Real Job Killer
By Craig Cheslog, on July 10th, 2011%
Rachel Maddow had an important segment on Friday night about he unforced economic error we are making by cutting hundreds of thousands of government jobs around the country while our economy has yet to regain its footing.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about . . . → Read More: An Unforced Economic Error
By Craig Cheslog, on June 16th, 2011%
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein does not want scare tactics about the Medicare program's finances to allow the Republicans to get away with privatizing the program. As he notes:
In fact, if the trust fund were to exhaust in 2024, income coming into the fund would still finance 90% of benefits. That’s something to be avoided, but it’s a different kind insolvency than that implied by the R’s mantra.
Finally, Ryan and company did not discover this challenge of paying for health care. We have a law on the books to meet the challenge—the Affordable Care Act. It has already improved Medicare’s fiscal outlook, though the real work—reducing the rate of health care costs for years to come—hasn’t even started yet.
Containing health care . . . → Read More: Misleading Medicare Mantra
By Craig Cheslog, on April 20th, 2011%
Columnist Matt Miller wonders why the political media are overlooking an important point about the House Republicans' budget plan:
Remember that great scene in the 1980 film classic, “The Shining,” when the wife comes upon the typewriter of the Jack Nicholson character, who’s supposed to have been working night and day for months on his novel? To her horror, she finds thousands of pages on which Jack has typed, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” formatted in countless, crazy ways. Suddenly his suspected madness becomes all too frighteningly real.
Well, debt limit mania has driven me to a similar frenzied state. If my wife came across my manuscript it would read, “The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next . . . → Read More: The GOP’s Debt Hypocrisy
By Craig Cheslog, on April 20th, 2011%
For how long are we going to continue to ignore this while cutting back the safety net, gutting education, and threatening cuts to Social Security and Medicare? The Associated Press' Stephen Ohlemacher reports:
The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992.
As Robert Reich notes, this is while the tax burden on average workers has grown.
Yet even as their share of the nation's total income has withered, the tax burden on average workers has grown. They're shelling out a far bigger chunk of incomes in payroll . . . → Read More: Super Rich See Federal Taxes Drop Dramatically
By Craig Cheslog, on April 15th, 2011%
California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton issued the following statement about today's House Republican budget vote:
The House GOP budget would cut corporate and personal income taxes for the rich and for the oil companies while slashing health care and education funding.
All 19 of California’s Republican Congressional members today voted for cuts that would end Medicare, cut Social Security, and ultimately hurt the most vulnerable among us: seniors and children.
The Republican members of California’s Congressional Delegation today showed they are but Lemmings to the most extreme members of the GOP, happy to follow the Tea Party as they jump off a cliff.
We would be content to watch the Republicans plunge to their political demise but for the fact their actions threaten to hurt so many others along . . . → Read More: The Rich Get Richer, The Poor Get Poorer and the Middle Class Goes Down the Drain
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