"Words that make actions speak louder."
Last week, when the president’s tax cut deal with Republicans was all but done, I wrote that the Democrats and progressives risk moral failure if we do not meet the moral obligation the tax cut deal would create. Now the deal is well and truly done — passed by the House and the Senate, and […]
Well, it’s official. The president will sign the tax cut deal into law this afternoon. The 99ers are getting nothing for Christmas, while the White House and the Tea Party congratulate themselves on extending tax cuts that don’t create jobs or stimulate the economy, because the rich don’t spend tax cuts — but nothing at […]
Unless something drastic happens between now and the vote on President Obama’s tax-cut "compromise" with congressional conservatives, America is headed for its next failed conservative stimulus. Even with the proposed tweaking around the edges, there is nothing in this bill that hasn’t already been tried and failed. In a sense, we are still living with […]
It has been said before — recently, even — but it bears saying again and again, as any truth does. Conservatives have finally, and completely, abandoned compassion. Progressives spent much of the previous decade declaring the "compassionate conservatism" of the Bush era a cruel joke. Policy gestures in that vein were seldom backed with the […]
The deal is done – regarding tax cuts and unemployment benefits extensions — and while we all have a stake in it, most of us won’t get anything of long-term value out of it. Least of all the 99ers — the people who have received benefits for 99 weeks, or more. I’ve read at least […]
Let’s face it. Nothing about the economic crisis is funny. Nothing about America’s 9% unemployment rate, 14.8 million unemployed, or 6.2 million long-term employed is funny. And there’s nothing mildly amusing about the 2 million Americans whose unemployment benefits began running out yesterday, after the GOP blocked another extension of unemployment benefits. (Especially if you […]
"America has spoken." It’s a phrase we’ve heard from the right after every election — special election, run-off or midterm — following the 2008 election in which voters sent Barack Obama to the White House and Democratic majorities to both houses of Congress. Though more Americans voted in that election than any that has followed, […]
It hasn’t even been a year since the Heritage Foundation placed Ireland among the top ten countries on its Economic Freedom Index. I wasn’t intending to write about Ireland at the time, but any time the Heritage Foundation holds up any country as an economic example attention must be paid. It’s an invaluable opportunity to […]
A couple of years ago I started writing about something I called "Drop Dead Conservatism," and attempted to define it: High on delusion, denial, and derision, it’s the face of a conservatism unequipped to recognize — let alone meet — the challenges America and the world now face, and blind to the possibility drowning itself […]
A while back I attempted to define “Drop Dead Conservatism.” High on delusion, denial, and derision, it’s the face of a conservatism unequipped to recognize — let alone meet — the challenges America and the world now face, and blind to the possibility drowning itself in irrelevance. It’s the face of a conservatism that, facing […]