"Words that make actions speak louder."
Leo W. Gerard: Stewart, you talk about power in a book you’ve written with economist Dr. Richard A. Levins. You called the manual, “Getting America Back to Work.” What’s the relationship between power and getting people back to work? Stewart J. Acuff: A big part of the problem we have with this economy or the […]
The country is in an economic emergency. Unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — is at extremely high levels and the recovery is faltering. Conservatives are obstructing efforts to solve this because they believe it helps them in the November election. To this end conservatives are throwing out every possible argument against helping the economy to […]
Just in: new data on our staggering income gap. Just emerging: a better understanding why such gaps make economic calamities inevitable. Years ago, in the mid 20th century, no one in the United States spent much time talking about rising income inequality, for the simple reason that inequality wasn’t rising. But that all began to […]
There’s a new conventional wisdom forming in Washington, DC this July 4th, one that transcends party lines and the usual classifications of “left” and “right” as they’re understood in that city. It’s only being recognized now, because it deals with a number of different economic issues, but the underlying theme is the same: The American […]
July 4, 1776, Independence Day celebrates our fight to cast off colonial rule by a wealthy elite who were keeping the benefits of our labors for themselves. We fought this system and we won our independence. In the years since We, the People have built up solid public structures like our system of laws and […]
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, who is emerging as the point person for any energy bill this year, ended a C-Span interview yesterday with a strikingly candid statement: There is a big gap between what the scientists say we should do to deal with climate change, and what the politics of the Congress today, and particularly the […]
The real jobs and deficit test is coming when the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire this year. If Congress lets them expire, deficit fears go away and there will be money to create jobs, maintain and modernize infrastructure, make the nation competitive in world markets, help the unemployed, upgrade health insurance and so […]
If the members of Congress who are spending time in their states and districts during the July 4 recess only get one message, it must be this one: Fight for the unemployed when you return to Washington. We mean, really fight, with serious votes on bills that match the seriousness of the unemployment crisis. Enough […]
Democrats won the news cycle yesterday when they slammed John Boehner for calling the economic crisis an “ant.” But winning a news cycle isn’t the same as winning an election. A new poll shows that the President and his party risk political suicide if they join in the mad rush to cut Social Security, and […]
Archon Fung recently wrote a piece in the Huffington Post entitled “The Left Should Learn to Trust Americans,” which mocked Dean Baker and me for criticizing AmericaSpeaks and the “national town meeting on the deficit.” We both felt the presentation was skewed toward creating a right-wing set of recommendations, while Professor Fung claimed the attendees’ […]