To Improve ‘Obamacare,” Reconsider the Original House Bill
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “Obamacare,” has survived its first year, and to the dismay of conservative fear-mongers who assumed it would fail, the law appears to be achieving exactly what it...
View ArticleEurope’s Austerity Zombies
NEW YORK – “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the theory,” goes the old adage. But too often it is easier to keep the theory and change the facts – or so German Chancellor Angela Merkel and...
View ArticleCommunity Policing: The Importance of Trust
What is community policing? In the wake of increased shootings in Ferguson and around the country, there has been a renewed public interest in the role of police, the extent of police brutality, and...
View ArticleBill de Blasio, Adam Smith and the Living Wage Movement
“It is but equity that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and...
View ArticleWhat if Taxes Go Up And No One Notices?
At the start of 2013, most American workers faced a 2 percent cut in their take-home pay, as the 2011-2012 Social Security payroll tax holiday came to an end. Conventional wisdom tells us that the...
View ArticleEbola Hysteria Fever: A Real Epidemic
Thus far, the Ebola virus has infected three people in the United States that we know of, however Ebola hysteria seems to have infected somewhere close to 300 million. There are reports of kids being...
View ArticleWe Don’t Need an Ebola Czar
There is no case for an American Ebola czar, least of all another political “fixer” who has no expertise in public health. This is just another case of the Obama administration putting politics before...
View ArticleWhat We’re Learning About Economic Equality and Growth
We’ve all seen the grim signs. At the personal level, more and more families are losing ground as they struggle to reach, or remain, in the middle class. At the national level, sluggish economic growth...
View ArticleFor Democrats, a Bold Vision Must Start at the Top
Democrats need to make an aggressive, bold, big economic vision a key element of everything we do. Democrats have never won elections when surveys showed we had a lower approval rating on jobs and the...
View ArticleEbola and Inequality
NEW YORK – The Ebola crisis reminds us, once again, of the downside of globalization. Not only good things – like principles of social justice and gender equality – cross borders more easily than ever...
View ArticleLess for the State Pen, More for Penn State
A few years ago, I asked the president of Pennsylvania State University what he saw as his number one leadership challenge. He replied, “It’s like Groundhog Day: every year I go to the state capital...
View ArticleAmericans are Convinced the Game is Rigged
The President blames himself for the Democrat’s big losses Election Day. “We have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the...
View ArticleCalifornia Voters Have Clear Education Priorities
On November 4th California voters re-elected Tom Torlakson over challenger Marshall Tuck by a 52 to 48 margin. Our survey of 2014 voters on November 4 and 5 shows a clear agenda that voters support....
View ArticleThe New Republican Attack on Social Security Starts Now!
Republican opponents of Social Security have not wasted even a single day in their plan to dismantle Social Security brick by brick. What should be a dry, mundane exercise — the adoption of new rules...
View ArticleScott Walker Exposes the Fiction Behind King v. Burwell
Coauthored by Joey Meyer Despite all the rhetoric against Obamacare, conservative governors and state officials aren’t exactly lining up to join the latest Supreme Court challenge designed to gut the...
View ArticleThe President’s State Of The Union Address: A Progressive Field Guide
The annual State of the Union address that President Obama will deliver tonight before the Republican-controlled Congress serves many functions. It provides the president with a chance to boast upon...
View ArticleA Social Security payroll tax freedom day for the 1 percent
On Feb. 11, the top 1 percent of American workers finish paying their Social Security payroll taxes for the year. That’s because the maximum amount of annual earnings subject to the tax is capped at...
View ArticleObama Versus Obamacare
The US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 health-care reform, has succeeded in extending insurance coverage to millions of Americans who would not...
View ArticleNot All Working Women Can ‘Lean In’
“Opting out” or “leaning in.” These seem to be the only two options now under discussion for working women in America, as pronounced most recently by former high-level State Department official,...
View ArticleAre U.S. Workers Ready for Retirement?
SCEPA’s Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab) today released a report that is the first to quantify the real effect of the retirement crisis – poverty. The report, “Are U.S. Workers Ready for Retiment?”...
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