The other day Senate Democrats did something they had failed to do for far too long. They presented their own blueprint to meet the country’s budget crisis. It was permeated not only by decency, but fiscal and economic sanity. As described in the Washington Post, under this plan the top 1 percent of American earners, individuals making more than $500,000 and families more than $1 million a year, would see their top tax rate rise to 39.6 percent, which was where it was in the early Clinton...

There’s a pledge war going on among Republican presidential candidates. The winner, with Tea Party backing, may well end up that party’s standard bearer in 2012. This war doesn’t involve verbal pledges, but the written and signed variety. No Republican, it seems, will any longer accept one of those “read my lips” pledges as binding enough. So then. What are Republican candidates lining up to pledge these days? There’s Grover Norquists’ no new taxes of any...

I haven’t commented in print on Michele’s Bachmann’s rantings in the past because they seemed unworthy of the effort. One rant from the congresswoman from Minnesota and Republican presidential candidate, however, has been hitting too close to home. Her oft-repeated comment that the EPA is this country’s worst “jobs killer.” I spent more than a decade of my professional life during the 1980s and 1990s writing about a new environmental economics. It was not based...

Three things immediately come to mind about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn Affair. The first is the question of who’s handling the guy’s public relations. Whoever they are they really knows their business. Between placements in high profile and usually qualify pubs, and feeds to the tabs, the media campaign to exonerate DSK and denigrate his accuser is one of the best I’ve ever seen. If I ever have the money and the need, I will definitely look up these professionals. The next thing...

Many progressives, including this writer, have been very angry with the President about his passive responses to Republican initiatives. He has often appeared to take the attitude: “You guys tell me what you want and I’ll go along with a few modifications in order to appear middle-of-the-road.” That’s how it has looked to a lot of us, especially when it came to budget and tax issues. But maybe we’ve been wrong — or at least not totally right. Maybe Mr. Obama is...

Jeff Shaara writes about Americans at war. His Civil War books were justly praised, his World War II efforts equally well received. The latest (and last) in his World War II series, The Final Storm, deals with the 1945 invasion of Okinawa, the last major land battle in the U.S. Pacific War against Japan before A-bombs brought an end to the conflict. Shaara’s use of made-up dialogue by famous and less-famous (though all real) people in these books doesn’t always work well. It can come...

Eric Cantor, the Tea Party’s rep in Congress, laid it on the line to the President the other day. You want us to keep negotiating, taxes are off the table. period. Then he commenced crooning in the style of Frank Sinatra… They’ll Do It My Way And now, though defaults loom I hold one steadfast notion It’s that, tax hikes mean doom To this I swear, my full devotion For me, negotiate A lesser rich folks exalted payday That game I’ll never play They’ll do it my way. Some doubts, others may...

Dear President Obama: We’ve been very patient with you and your Democratic pals. We’ve given you plenty of time to do exactly what we want done — stiff the poor and middle class big time without bothering the rich in any way. But even our patience has limits, and these limits have now been reached. So here are your instructions. We’ve taken taxing the rich off the table. It’s off the table. Stop talking about it. Stop thinking about it. We won’t negotiate until you...

Only three things need be said about a serious third party contender for the presidency in 2012. First, this person could win. Second, the issues that would let this person win are obvious. Third, money need not keep such a candidate from running. About the first thing. President Obama is not liked by most of the people who elected him in 2008 and not respected by those who opposed him. His message in 2012 comes down to this: My Republican opponent is worse than me. This opponent, in fact, might...

Will Greece be able to pay its bond debt and avoid default? Sure — with a few caveats. This will happen if lenders feel so sure about the country’s future solvency that they lend it more money at rates comparable to what the U.S., Germany and Australia now pay. And if Greek workers decide to accept happily the crushing austerity needed to service their country’s debts, and rich Greek tax cheats decide that they should pay what’s asked of them without a protest. And of course...

Though every crisis is different, they often progress in similar ways. This seems to be the case with the present debt-related financial crisis rippling through western economies. It’s present causes are unique, but it seems to be meandering down an all-too familiar and frightening path. During much of the 1920s in Europe there were deep recessions linked to debt. A fair number of players were involved and a slew of accommodations were attempted to resolve these debt issues. But it had one...

According to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal, AARP, the long time semi-official defender of seniors’ rights and perks, has now decided not to fight against some cuts in Social Security benefits. No. You haven’t misread that. They are reported to no longer oppose cuts in Social Security benefits. The reason, according to this story, is that they believe these cuts are inevitable, and wants a seat at the table “to minimize the pain.” Let us forget, for the moment,...

According to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal, AARP, the long time semi-official defender of seniors’ rights and perks, has now decided not to fight against cuts in Social Security benefits. No. You haven’t misread that. They are reported to no longer oppose some cuts in Social Security benefits. The reason, according to this story, is that they believe these cuts are inevitable, and they want a seat at the table “to minimize the pain.” Let us forget, for the...

The ultra-conservative smirkers in Washington and state capitals think Medicaid is an easy target. After all, most of the program’s beneficiaries are poor women or kids. The former don’t vote all that much. The latter can’t vote. So politically speaking — and how else do ultra-conservatives speak these days, compassion and common decency being so, so liberal — politically speaking, Medicaid seems like a great big step to squeeze out huge cuts in government spending. Except… Except...

Sometimes a simple phrase sticks in politicians’ minds like duct tape and guides their actions no matter how misguided the phrase or how intrinsically destructive. Such a phrase is Tip O’Neill’s famous throwaway line that “money is the mother’s milk of politics,” which suggests that money is what always separates winners from losers, and thus what always must shape policy decisions. That shouldn’t be true. In fact, it usually isn’t. And when it is,...

COW is short for concentration of wealth. The ever increasing wealth in fewer hands is perhaps the greatest single factor explaining this country’s economic decline. While most liberals are quick to characterize a growing COW in a totally negative way, however, this misses the really critical point. It’s not the size of the COW that’s the problem. Not that our COW has gotten too fat. It’s that we have a sick COW. Wealth concentration is vital to economic growth and general...

The other day on Public Radio a conservative economist was interviewed about the federal budget battle now going on in Washington. He was asked the usual questions and gave the usual answers. Until, that is, he was asked whether he didn’t think that the rich should share the sacrifices that deep program cuts would impose on the poor. His answer to this question blew me away. He said that they would share these sacrifices. The reason being that the same program cuts applied to all equally, and...

In its story about today’s ghastly jobs report, the New York Times noted that local governments last month cut 28,000 jobs, and have cut 446,000 in all since September 2008. These governments did so to meet budgetary requirements that were not met (except in a few places) by higher taxes on the wealthy. Republicans in Washington are now demanding cuts of as much as $2 trillion over the next decade to meet national budgetary requirements. Cuts of this magnitude will not be lessened, they make...

Selig, you’re back. Haven’t seen you in awhile. Long vacation? Not a vacation, Mr. B. Convention. The annual Investment Bank Washroom Cleaners Expo in Paramus, New Jersey. Rather like the big money guys get-together in Davos, eh Selig? In more ways than one might expect, sir. And I see your expo has inspired you with patriotic zeal, Selig. All that red, white and blue bunting you’ve hung on the toilet stall doors. In honor of July 4th, I suppose. No, sir. In honor of our company’s...

How could anyone (even an economist) think the prospects for a moribund U.S. economy will improve in months and probably years to come? It’s time to stop all the “experts see hope” and “certain indicators suggest” nonsense. Time to just plain look at what’s happening and what’s almost certainly going to happen. Housing is the traditional leader in U.S. economic recoveries. Not this time. You know all the reasons. Why bother enumerating them again here. Consumer...

Last week I happened to take out a great old gangster movie from the library, White Heat starring James Cagney. I was also closely tracking doings on Wall Street. Some similarities between that film and Street doings were quite striking. Cagney played a sociopath named Cody Jarrett. Among his other foibles, Jarrett had a deeply neurotic dependency on his mother. Whenever he was having one of his debilitating migraines, it was only by sitting on her lap and having his head stroked that the pain could...

Pretty much everyone but wall street and government economists now understands that the Fed is using a so-called ‘core rate’ measure of inflation to understate inflation’s true size, and doing so in order to keep from being forced to halt its low-rate, money printing, pump priming policies. What’s not generally understood, however, is how utterly warped and inherently deceptive this core rate of inflation measure actually is. The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is computed by assigning...

“A choice, not an echo,” has been used in political campaigns by both major parties. It was first used by the 1884 campaign of Democrat Grover Cleveland, and used again 80 years later as a slogan in the 1964 campaign of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. This slogan was meant to draw attention to very basic differences with the other major party, its candidates, and its policies. Alas, as is true with our present-day president when it comes to so many issues, especially...

The largest oil companies made $35 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year. They are on track to make a record $140 billion over the entire year. Their industry, the oil industry, receives special tax breaks of $2.1 billion a year. In testimony before Congress this week, top executives of the largest oil companies were chided by some senators. They were told that were their industry’s tax breaks taken away, $2 billion a year less would have to be cut from health and other programs...

House Speaker Boehner, at the behest of Tea Partiers, has drawn a line in the sand. Two trillion dollars in budget cuts is the price Republicans want in return for voting to raise the debt limit. No new taxes will be part of this deficit reduction deal. These terms are non-negotiable. Well, I have my own plan to meet the deficit challenge. And it’s also non-negotiable. It involves taxes that Boehner and company say can’t be raised at all. The first element of my non-negotiable plan focuses...