January 2011
10 posts
The President Ignored the Elephant in the Room
The President’s new emphasis on the importance of investing in education, infrastructure, and basic research in order to build the nation’s long-term competitive capacities is appropriate. For the last three decades the federal government’s spending on these three essentials has declined as a percentage of its total spending, arguably threatening America’s technological and economic...
The State of the Union and the Federal Budget:...
Word has it that the President will be emphasizing “improving American competitiveness” in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night. As I’ve noted, the term is meaningless — but it’s politically useful. CEOs and many conservatives think it means improving the profitability of American companies. Liberals and labor unions think it means increasing export jobs. Neither touches at the...
The State of the Union: What the President Should...
The President will have to devote a big part of his speech to the economy, but which economy? Corporate profits are up but jobs and wages remain in the doldrums. People with lots of financial assets, or who are deemed “talent” by large corporations, are enjoying a solid recovery. But most Americans continue to struggle.
In order for the public to understand what must be done, the...
American Competitiveness, and the President's New...
Whenever you hear a business executive or politician use the term “American competitiveness,” watch your wallet. Few terms in public discourse have gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.
President Obama just appointed Jeffry Immelt, GE’s CEO, to head his outside panel of economic advisors, replacing Paul Volcker. According...
The Real Economic Lesson China Could Teach Us
Highlighting today’s summit between Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Obama is China’s agreement to buy $45 billion of American exports. The President says this will create more American jobs. That’s not exactly right. It will create more profits for American companies but relatively few new jobs.
Nearly half of the deal is for two hundred Boeing aircraft whose parts come from all...
Gabby Won't be Stopped
“Be careful of yourself,” I told Gabby last March, after the front glass door and a window at her Tucson congressional office were shattered. The attack came the same evening — Sunday, March 21 — she and other House Democrats voted for the health care law.
She laughed. “I’m tougher than nails. Nothing’s gonna stop me.”
This week House Republicans...
I’ll be out of the country and off grid for the next ten days. Best wishes to all.
How the Republican Assault on Health Care Could...
When it comes to health care, Republicans should be careful what they wish for.
Their upcoming vote to repeal the health-care law will be largely symbolic — they don’t have the votes to override President Obama’s certain veto. The real thing happens later, when they try to strip the Department of Health and Human Services of money needed to implement the law’s requirement that all Americans...
The Shameful Attack on Public Employees
In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.
But now the right is going after public...
The Big Lie
Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that’s too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.
The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The...
