Working Life

Probably the toughest mountain to climb in this country is reversing the three-decade Reagan-era damage to the notion that paying taxes is part of what we do to live in a decent society. One of the cornerstones of the anti-responsibility meme is rich people will flee a state that raises taxes. The problem is that […]

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   Change has to begin with the transformation of the economy: a rejection of the marketing phrase of the "free market". The president has made some very strong proposals in this area. A large group of Members of Congress is now pushing him to declare a new era in trade.   I just received the […]

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  When many people voted for "change", they embraced the idea that the parameters and language of our policy debate had to be altered. Nowhere is that more evident than on the topic of trade. Now, there is legitimate concern that the president may not live up to his rhetoric when it comes to so-called […]

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    I suppose nothing should surprise us. But, here’s another one in a list of "let them eat cake" moments: CEOs are getting major boosts in their pensions, while the pensions of most Americans have either disappeared or take a major hit.   This article largely escaped notice in last week’s Wall Street Journal, whose […]

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I’ve been pretty clear that we should be significantly raising the taxes on the richest Americans–much higher than the top rates that were in place during the Clinton Administration, which is where the president-elect believes they should go. But, I’m happy at least to see some lines being drawn on estate taxes.   The Wall […]

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Maybe you feel, on days like this, the same way I do–that you live in an alternate universe. In my alternate universe, I wouldn’t consider cutting education, health care, or aid to the poor before asking the richest people in our society to pay their fair share in dues. In my alternate universe, I would […]

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  I continue to be amazed at the moral obscenity underway in our country. We are in a financial crisis, states are cutting education and health care, and we are wringing our hands over federal deficits–yet there is no serious discussion about significantly taxing the rich, who have reaped hundreds of billions of dollars in […]

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   Nothing is keeping my anger quotient higher than the refusal by politicians in New York state–and across the nation–to tax the rich. It is nothing less than an obscenity. We’ve got mountains of money piled high in a few bank accounts–and, yet, no one wants to ask those fortunate few to stop cuts in […]

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Jay Gould, the robber baron of the 19th Century, famously said that, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." As we live through one of the worst economic collapses in a century, Gould’s wish is coming true. And we must stop Gould’s modern-day robber barons from sowing seeds […]

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   The obscenity continues in America. The economy is destroyed–short-term and long-term–by incompetents and greedy people. But, it’s regular people who had nothing to do with this disaster who take the hit. And now we have the governor of New York blessing the disaster by taking aim at workers and letting the rich of the […]

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