Working Life

The pandemic has ripped a hole through every state budget in the country to the tune collectively of over $550 billion. That red ink is more than half a trillion dollars in money states won’t have—which translates into millions of people losing their jobs, services being decimated that we all rely on, attacks against people […]

Read the full story

 Let’s go really big! I outline a $6.5 trillion stimulus—more than double what the Democrats in the House passed—because that’s what the people need over the next year: $1.3 trillion in wage guarantees; $715 billion for state and local governments; $600 billion for a “Pandemic Medicare For All”; $1.5 trillion to cancel all student […]

Read the full story

It is quite something to hear the elites in Washington—especially Republican members of Congress and the menace in the White House—blather on about wanting to wait to see how well the previous, inadequate fiscal stimulus works before deciding whether to do anything else. That’s while tens of millions of people are in the streets, huge […]

Read the full story

Not that this should be entirely shocking but this should end the debate about how is getting fleeced and who carries the burden in society. And it’s useful to have this handy to dispatch to the usual class warfare deniers.

Read the full story

If you sit and worry about how to save public money, it’s no mystery — go after the drug companies and health insurance mafia. That’s where real money is.

Read the full story

We tend to hear most of the rhetoric on taxes focus on federal taxes — and there certainly is good reason to do so. But, the underbelly of the system — and the way in which the poorest people are screwed — can also be seen at the state and local level.

Read the full story

With all the foolishness everyone seems to associate with the folks in Washington, D.C., don’t worry — coming to a state near you will be same lame-brained ideas that have caused a heap of damage for decades. You know the rap: lower taxes because, presto, that’s the magic potion for all that can be good. Oh, no.

Read the full story

   You’ve heard (and, in some cases, unfortunately, been persuaded) that "generous" pensions given to public employees has caused great deficits in pensions and state budgets. It’s nonsense. And here are the facts to prove it.    The Center for Economic and Policy Research has a very important study out. It must be given wide […]

Read the full story

In the lore of political budgetary rhetoric, Sen Everett Dirksen’s observation is often useful: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money” he is rumored to have said–rumored because there is some debate about whether he actually used that whole phrase. But, whatever–it’s useful to our current discussion. Where […]

Read the full story

  Each day brings a stupefying new chapter in the class warfare underway in America. Today, it’s the unfathomable idea that regular people who had worked their entire lives serving the public should now be effectively cast out into the cold, their pensions ripped up. But, what we need to connect is this: there is […]

Read the full story