Tag: Economy
Marco Rubio Votes No on Senate Fiscal Cliff Bill
It’s hard to explain why Florida’s junior senator would vote against the economic bill extending the Bush tax cuts on household income under $450,000. Or maybe it’s painfully easy to explain: Rubio is indeed planning to run for president in 2016.
Rubio stood with the handful of his peers who voted against the package, including Rand Paul (R/Tea-Ken.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), and Thomas Carper (D-Del.).
Those looking for a less cynical explanation of Rubio’s vote won’t find any help from the senator’s office, which issued this statement.
That Wouldn’t Happen If Mitt Had Won
Boehner ‘flabbergasted’ that Obama offers actual campaign promises as part of “fiscal cliff” negotiations
— Mike Poller, tweeting as @FatherGator
Look Over Your Shoulder, Grover Norquist
NEW POLL: 56% of Americans want to throw Grover Norquist off the fiscal cliff.
— Tweet from @LOLGOP
The Problem is Bigger Than Black Friday Protests, Even if You Don’t Shop at Walmart or Eat Twinkies
Numbers sometimes paint a more vivid picture than words. For instance, these numbers:
Largest private sector employer in 1950: General Motors
Largest private sector employer in 2012: Walmart
Average worker wage by largest private sector employer in 1950: $50 per hour
Average worker wage by largest private sector employer in 2012: $8.81 per hour
Percentage of the labor force that belonged to a union in 1950: 34
Percentage of the labor force that belonged to a union in 2012: 7
Those figures come from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and the $50 per hour includes benefits and is adjusted for 2012 dollars. Reich adds that one-third of Walmart workers are allowed only 28 hours per week, so they are not eligible for benefits. They are also barred from unionizing.
Which brings us to Twinkies.
Michael Saylor: ‘Mobile technology is a stunning gift to economies in places like India and Africa’
When the company told its employees recently that they would have to surrender their benefits or the company would liquidate, management tried to blame the situation on the union. But there have been six management teams over only eight years, a dizzying revolving door in the executive suite, with one Bain Capital-esque restructurer after another asking for more concessions from workers while sending the resulting profits to investors. As union president Frank Hurt told it:
The Truth About the Deficit: It’s Shrinking Faster Than Anytime Since the End of WWII
The problem isn’t the deficit, which has fallen faster over the past three years than it has since the end of World War II, but employment, says economic analyst Jed Graham. So let’s not go down the path of Europe and apply unneeded austerity measures that plunge us back into recession.
Believe it or not, the federal deficit has fallen faster over the past three years than it has in any such stretch since demobilization from World War II.
In fact, outside of that post-WWII era, the only time the deficit has fallen faster was when the economy relapsed in 1937, turning the Great Depression into a decade-long affair.
…From fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2012, the deficit shrank 3.1 percentage points, from 10.1% to 7.0% of GDP.
U.S. to Be No. 1 in Oil Production by 2020
No. 1
Position of the United States in world oil production in eight years in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The agency also projects America will be fully energy-independent by 2030. We blame Obama for this.
October Job Growth Might Have Been Twice the Forecast. Cue the Rightwing CEO Tweets
Tweets galore address the report from ADP (a payroll services provider) that 158,000 private sector jobs were added in October. Since this figure is about twice the gain of 88,000 jobs that was forecasted, we can again expect rightwing CEOs to start questioning the motives of the company, in between sending emails to their staffs threatening to cut their jobs if Obama is re-elected.
While we wait for those tweets to proliferate, here’s one I liked:
Four More Years @4More99
We expected the US to create 88,000 jobs in October – instead there were 158,000. I blame Obama.
Republican Tax Policies Added the Portion of the 47% Who are Poor
Mitt Romney has distanced himself from his remarks lamenting the nearly 47 percent of Americans who do not owe federal income taxes, but his fellow Republicans helped engineer the very tax breaks that have put many in that category. And little change is expected soon.
Economist: ‘There is some degree of disconnect between complaining about the 47% and yet supporting the policies that brought it about’A key reason: The breaks in question – the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit – are based on core Republican philosophies of encouraging work to lift people out of poverty, Republican aides and many conservatives say.
The number of Americans not owing federal income taxes has been growing since the mid-1980s, and the increase largely stems from expansion of these two tax credits – championed by Republicans from conservative economist Milton Friedman to former President Ronald Reagan.
“It is absolutely true – there is some degree of disconnect between complaining about the 47 percent and yet supporting the policies that brought it about,” said economist Alan Viard of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
The income credit began under Republican President Gerald Ford and was significantly expanded by Reagan. The child credit doubled to $1,000 under Republican President George W. Bush.
