Arizona teacher strike: it;s not just about a raise. It;s about defending public education. - Vox

Arizona teacher strike: its not just about a raise. Its about defending public education. - Vox



Tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, and public schools.

Republicans Reward Bankers- endanger you and I

Courting the Next Financial Collapse. You’d almost think the Republicans want the banks to melt down again. Bit by bit, they’ve been gutting the Dodd-Frank Act. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been put on ice, placed in the hands of one of its sworn enemies, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney.

Giving banks free rein to screw consumers is one thing. Letting banks play roulette with the entire economy is something else. But the latest bad idea from the Comptroller of the Currency, the agency that regulates national banks, and the Federal Reserve, goes at the heart of the abuses that Dodd-Frank sought to remedy.

At the core of the financial crisis of 2008 was the tendency of banks to make increasingly risky bets, where the potential loss far exceeded their own capital. If all the bets went bad, all the banks would be insolvent. That’s what happened in the fall of 2008, and it took a massive government bailout to keep the banking collapse from taking down the rest of the economy.

Now the Fed and the Comptroller want to allow banks to have larger multiples of debt to capital. One of the core reforms of Dodd-Frank was to limit excess bank leverage. It’s not as if these strictures are draconian—banks today need to keep only six cents capital for every 94 cents they lend out. 

But the bankers have lobbied the administration for even more generous rules, and the administration seems inclined to do their bidding. Like the tax cut, these policy changes have nothing to do with making the economy more efficient. They are entirely about rewarding the already rich, and increasing risks for the rest of us.

This proposal is so perverse that two Republican regulatory officials, one former head of the FDIC and the current vice chairman wrote an op-ed piece that The Wall Street Journal published warning against it.

Tom Hoenig and Sheila Bair wrote: "These proposals would weaken system resiliency either to benefit shareholder distributions or to allow the eight largest banks to become even bigger by taking on more leverage and more risk."

You get the sense that the Trump crowd knows their days are numbered—and want to deliver everything that’s not nailed down to their corporate allies before they are tossed out. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Austerity Economics Leads to Teacher Strikes

TEACHERS WALK OUT IN ARIZONA, COLORADO: "Thousands of teachers in Arizona and Colorado walked out of their classrooms on Thursday to demand more funding for public schools, the latest surge of a teacher protest movement that has already swept through three states and is spreading quickly to others," Simon Romero and Julie Turkewitz report in the New York Times. 

"Widespread teacher protests have in recent months upended daily routines in the conservative-leaning states West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky," the Times reports. "But the sight of public workers protesting en masse in the Arizona capital, one of the largest Republican strongholds in the country, and demanding tax increases for more school funding, spoke to the enduring strength of the movement and signaled shifts in political winds ahead of this year's midterm elections."

"Educators in both states want more classroom resources and have received offers either for increased school funding or pay, but they say the money isn't guaranteed and the efforts don't go far enough," Melissa Daniels and Anita Snow write in the Associated Press. "Most of Arizona's public schools will be closed the rest of the week, and about half of all Colorado students will see their schools shuttered over the two days as teachers take up the Arizona movement's #RedforEd mantle." More from the Times here and the AP here.

See also: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/opinion/teachers-arizona-walkout.html

Opinion | We Don;t Need No Education - The New York Times

Opinion | We Don’t Need No Education - The New York Times

Paul Krugman



The Republican War on Education

The Big Banks Already Made $2.3 Billion Off Trump;s Tax Cuts

The Big Banks Already Made $2.3 Billion Off Trump’s Tax Cuts

It's simpler than it looks: The Plutocrats' Toxic Narrative: Lies, Half Truths...

It's simpler than it looks: The Plutocrats' Toxic Narrative: Lies, Half Truths...: My neighbor Jeff sent me a "sobering" editorial entitled Goodbye California from Hoover Institute   fellow, and military histori...

Corporate Taxes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

With profanity. 

Tax Cuts for Corporations and Snake Oil

Last year, the Republicans in Congress sold snake oil to the American people. They introduced a tax bill that made the same promise we've been hearing for 30 years: "Cut taxes for billionaires and giant corporations, and those savings will trickle down into the paychecks of their employees." Just because you say something over and over again, doesn't make it true. We couldn't stop the Republicans from jamming their reckless bill through Congress. But thanks to enormous public pressure from people like you, some companies did give their employees a raise or bonus. (Yay!) But most giant corporations did exactly what we expected: they used the enormous tax breaks to buy back their companies' stock -- raising their stock prices and lining the pockets of their CEOs and wealthy investors. The numbers prove it: Since the tax bill passed, corporations have announced more than $250 billion in stock buybacks. Duane, if these tax breaks were truly for the American people, we need to make sure the people in charge of these big banks and giant corporations aren't just using their tax breaks to give themselves a raise. That's why last month, I cosponsored the Reward Work Act with Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Brian Schatz of Hawaii. This bill that would limit stock buybacks to force companies use their extra cash to reward their workers, not just their investors and executives. Click here to sign our petition and say you support the Reward Work Act. Tell Republicans in Congress it's time to live up to their promises and make their tax break work for working people. Just take a look at Wells Fargo. Over the past few years, Wells Fargo was caught opening millions of bank accounts that their customers didn't want and charging them for auto insurance that they didn't need. But instead of punishing Wells Fargo, Congress decided to give them a reward. Wells Fargo received a $3.4 billion tax boost by the Republican tax plan. Wells Fargo used that money to buy back company stock - and because CEO Tim Sloan is largely paid in company stock, he got a $4.6 million raise. And while CEOs like Tim Sloan rake in millions of dollars, working people pick up the bill. When big banks and giant corporations don't pay their fair share, everyone else feels it. Less money for Medicare and Medicaid. Less money for education, affordable housing, and infrastructure. Less money to build a future so the next kid can get ahead, and the kid after that, and the kid after that. The Reward Work Act does three main things: It repeals a SEC rule that makes it easier for a corporation to buy back stock. It ends a corporation's ability to buy back stock on the open market. And it requires that employees of public companies have the power to directly elect one-third of their company's board of directors. It's simple: if Republicans promise workers raises across the country, we should hold them to that promise. Big banks and huge corporations shouldn't be shoveling their tax breaks into the bank accounts of the rich and powerful. Trump and his Republican allies may have passed their tax bill, but it's not too late to fight back, Duane. Click here to join me in saying you support the Reward Work Act -- a bill that will end stock buybacks and make sure enormous tax breaks aren't just going to those at the top. Thanks for being a part of this, Elizabeth

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy, Or Quality Public Schools

by Randi Weingarten ,President, American Federation of Teachers 

What do basketball legend Charles Barkley and the late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. have in common? An understanding that taxes fund things that we need and value.

Holmes told a law clerk who complained about paying taxes, “I like to pay taxes. It’s what we pay for a civilized society.” More than a century later, Barkley came to a similar conclusion. He used to say he did not like paying taxes, until he got a call from basketball icon Bill Russell. Russell pointed out that money from taxes paid for the public schools Barkley attended growing up, and for police officers and firefighters in his community. Russell said, “Now that you got money, you don’t want to help other people out, but when you were poor other people took care of you.” Barkley replied, “You will never hear me complain about my taxes again.”

Weingarten with AFT members in Oklahoma marching to the state Capitol April 2. Photo by Adam Derstine.

But many people do complain about paying their share for essential public services. Some wealthy Americans calculated that they could pay more in campaign contributions in order to pay less in taxes. The Republican-controlled Congress responded with a tax overhaul last December that lavishes the wealthiest 1 percent with 83 percent of the cuts. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week reported that the plan will increase the deficit to nearly $1 trillion in fiscal 2019, and that, by 2028, the national debt could equal nearly the entire value of all the finished goods and services produced in the country.

Republicans claimed that these massive tax cuts would pay for themselves and benefit all Americans. But retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan immediately backtracked on that pledge. Ryan said Congress would now “tackle the debt and the deficit” the tax cuts create, providing the GOP an excuse to make deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and other programs the neediest Americans depend on.

Americans are not fooled. A recent AFT- Democracy Corps poll found that most respondents have not personally benefited from the tax plan and are unhappy their wages are not keeping up with rising costs. They are angry the GOP plans to pay for tax cuts they don’t benefit from by shredding the social safety net. And they feel strongly the funds being redistributed to the rich should have been invested in public schools, healthcare or infrastructure.

Such investments are vital. Twenty- nine states still spend less on public education than they did before the Great Recession. And many states have seen devastating consequences after sharply cutting taxes. Kansas enacted an extreme form of trickle-down economics, on the premise that it would usher in an economic boom. Instead, state revenue plummeted, the deficit exploded and officials slashed spending on everything from road repair to Medicaid and public education. Kansans across party lines railed against the decimation of public goods and services, prompting the Legislature to pass a $1.2 billion tax increase last year, but the state is still struggling to fund essential public services.

Officials’ choices to cut taxes for the wealthy rather than invest in essential services lie at the heart of the teacher walkouts now gripping the country. In Oklahoma, income tax cuts and tax breaks for the oil and gas industry deprive the state of $1.5 billion a year. West Virginia lawmakers have cut taxes by more than $4 billion in the last decade.

These irresponsible tax cuts have made it impossible to, in Justice Holmes’ words, “pay for a civilized society.” In Oklahoma, textbooks are held together with duct tape, and, while a student was excited to be issued a textbook once used by country singer Blake Shelton, her mother was horrified to realize Shelton had used it nearly 40 years ago. Teacher pay in West Virginia and Oklahoma ranks 48th and 49th lowest, respectively, in the nation.

One of the starkest current examples of disinvestment is in Puerto Rico, where the governor is proposing to close 450 public schools in less than one year. In the wake of the devastation caused by recent hurricanes, this will further tear at the fabric of community life and promote the continuing exodus from the island.

Teachers, students and parents are standing up to prevent this catastrophe.

Meanwhile, it’s testing season in America’s schools. And while many so-called education reformers fixate on algorithms, outputs and accountability, the teachers waging these walkouts offer a reminder that, before anything else, we have to take care of the basics—investing in and supporting our students, their educators and their schools.

We all benefit from safe communities, great public schools and a civilized society. And we all have a responsibility to contribute our fair share to make that possible.

Download the Column (472.9 KB)

The Problem With Public Pensions Isn’t Size, It’s the Politics of Funding – Mother Jones

The Problem With Public Pensions Isn't Size, It;s the Politics of Funding  Mother Jones

Congress could give bank shareholders a $53 billion gift

Congress could give bank shareholders a $53 billion gift

Trade Dispute With China

Testimony before the Senate Finance Committee Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness for a hearing on ‘Market Access Challenges in China’ 

Testimony • By Thea M. Lee • April 11, 2018

This litany of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation has had a serious and pervasive negative impact on American jobs and wages. As my colleague, Rob Scott, demonstrated in a 2017 report, Growth in U.S.–China Trade Deficit between 2001 and 2015 Cost 3.4 Million Jobs [ https://www.epi.org/publication/growth-in-u-s-china-trade-deficit-between-2001-and-2015-cost-3-4-million-jobs-heres-how-to-rebalance-trade-and-rebuild-american-manufacturing ], the deficit cost jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Between 2001 and 2011, the growing trade deficit cost directly impacted workers $37 billion a year, while also putting downward pressure on the wages of all non-college graduates by $180 billion a year.

Well informed analysis. 

Read the testimony. 

https://www.epi.org/publication/testimony-before-the-senate-finance-committee-subcommittee-on-international-trade-customs-and-global-competitiveness-for-a-hearing-on-market-access-challenges-in-china/

The Paul Ryan Story: From Flimflam to Fascism - The New York Times

Opinion | The Paul Ryan Story: From Flimflam to Fascism - The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Paul Ryan - Architect of Republican Austerity

And, he has won.  For now.!

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) announced this week that he will not run for re-election later this year, bringing down the curtain on his long career of antagonism toward the plight of the nation’s poor and disadvantaged people.

Though Ryan’s public persona has been characterized, off-and-on, as something of a serious and deep thinkeron issues related to poverty, taxation, and welfare policy, his record — and now legacy — in public life is one of consistent cruelty. For the entirety of his nearly 20-year career in the House and, especially, since holding the Speaker’s gavel since 2016, Ryan’s single-minded purpose in governance has been to seek and destroy federal support for the poor. 

Ryan came to Congress in 1998, pledging to bring discipline and reform to Social Security and other federal welfare programs that he’s hated since his college days.

Ironically, Ryan owes, in great part, his personal and political success to the Social Security payment he and his family received following his 55-year-old father’s death, when Ryan was 16 years old. In other words, the welfare-cutting Speaker got his start in life by earning a B.A. in economics and political science at the Miami University of Ohio, with money provided by his late father’s welfare payments.

Paul Ryan says he fantasized about cutting health care for the poor at his college keggers

That was just the start of Ryan’s hypocrisy.

In 2014, Ryan displayed his callous disregard for the suffering of poor and hungry Americans when he argued against progressive budget proposals that urged giving low-income students free lunches. “The left is making a big mistake here,” Ryan said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.“What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul.”

"Balanced Budget " Amendment is a Really Bad Idea

Republicans currently control both houses of Congress and the presidency. They could balance the budget if they wanted to.

Why then is the House of Representatives scheduling a vote this week on a so-called balanced budget amendment (BBA)?

This is clearly a political stunt. But, if passed, the ramifications would be extraordinarily dangerous for the economy.

Stand with the EPI Policy Center and sign the petition demanding Congress reject the “balanced budget amendment” which would cause real harm to the U.S. economy.

The simple fact is that the economic consequences of a balanced budget amendment range from extremely bad to catastrophic. The reason for this is that a BBA would amplify any negative economic shock to the economy and would thereby turn run-of-the-mill recessions into disasters.

EPI Policy Center research shows that if we had been forced to balance the budget in the face of the shock that led to the Great Recession, then GDP would have declined by a staggering 22 percentage points.

Additionally, while unemployment peaked at 10 percent during the Great Recession, a balanced budget would have caused unemployment to peak instead at about 21 percent!

Misunderstanding Trade Wars

Misunderstanding Trade 

Andrew Fisher

Trump’s trade tirades are being vigorously disputed by liberal economists the world over, although the riposte is usually in defence of free trade and existing trade deals. However, many of these same economists have promulgated the underlying idea that U.S. trade deficits are the result of some sort of disadvantage or decline.

For instance, as I discussed in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, many prominent economists such as Paul Krugman argued then (and many still do now) that China’s undervalued currency gave it an unfair advantage, causing deficits and even financial bubbles in the U.S. Many economists on the left have taken a similar line of argument. For instance, Yanis Varoufakis argues that U.S. trade deficits have planted the seeds for the downfall of the U.S. ‘Minotaur’ because it has made the country increasingly dependent on the willingness of other countries to finance these deficits.

Beyond methodological nationalism

The problem with this reasoning is that international trade, income and financial data mostly represent the trade, income and asset movements made by corporations

Republicans Propose National Austerity

How the Tax Cuts for Millionaires Will Be Paid For.

Even before Monday’s report from the Congressional Budget Office, which projected a budget deficit of $1 trillion in 2020, Republicans were already responding to the gap they created when they passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut. Their response, of course, isn’t to revisit the cuts they showered on the rich, but to cut the domestic spending that they and the Democrats agreed to when they passed a spending bill a couple of weeks ago.

Now the administration and its congressional enablers are looking at enacting an “enhanced rescission package” to roll back the portion of that spending directed at such frivolities as education and the environment. While the Senate customarily requires 60 votes to pass a bill, a rescission bill can pass with just 51 votes, which, through a happy GOP coincidence, is exactly the number of Republicans in the Senate (although the ailing John McCain hasn’t been able to be in the Senate for the past several months).

The case for the rescission was recently made on Fox News by the new White House National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, who came to the job on the strength of his (very convincing) cable news performances as a supply-side simpleton. “It’s really not a bad idea to trim some spending,” Kudlow told Fox, “because, after all, spending can lead to deficits and spending interferes with the economy.”

Good thing those trillion-dollar tax cuts for the rich don’t lead to deficits! Good thing, too, that Kudlow appreciates how spending on infrastructure and education can interfere with the economy (albeit, contra Kudlow, positively).

Social Security and the Balanced Budget Amendment

Ryan was the architect of the House’s failed Trumpcare plan, which would have destroyed Medicaid and devastated Medicare, and his early career was marked by a series of “roadmaps” that turned guaranteed benefits into inadequate vouchers. Americans are undoubtedly better off without him in Congress. But Paul Ryan is not the only threat to Social Security and Medicare. Republicans in Congress have shown that they are unified in their aim to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires at the expense of working and middle class economic security. Stand with Social Security Works and demand that the next Speaker of the House fight to expand Social Security and Medicare, not cut them! Ryan’s House will still vote this week on the so-called Balanced Budget Amendment, which would force cuts to these vital programs, while making it nearly impossible to increase revenues. It is a recipe to starve every program that Americans rely on--and Republicans plan to vote for it overwhelmingly. The problem is much deeper than just Paul Ryan.

Tell Congress: "We demand that Congress reject their “balanced budget amendment” that threatens Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs Americans count on." ADD YOUR NAME

For 20 years, since first being elected to Congress, Paul Ryan’s goal has been to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and slash taxes on the rich and wealthy corporations.

Now, in the wake of the GOP tax scam, which hands massive tax breaks to the richest 1% and multinational corporations, Republicans in the House are preparing to introduce a “balanced budget amendment.”

Such an amendment would force automatic cuts to our earned benefits and other critical programs for working families and older Americans. It would jeopardize our retirement security and the security of veterans, people with disabilities, children and surviving spouses.

Sign the petition to demand that Congress reject a “balanced budget amendment” which would cause automatic cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Oklahoma Teachers Strike Against Austerity

Choosing Democracy: Oklahoma Teachers Strike Against Austerity: Oklahoma teachers proudly marked themselves absent from school since Monday, and they had an excellent excuse: They made themselves pr...

Fallout From Red-State Teacher Strikes Piles Onto Republican Midterm Anxieties – Talking Points Memo

Fallout From Red-State Teacher Strikes Piles Onto Republican Midterm Anxieties – Talking Points Memo



Austerity in the states.

Rainy Days for the CSU

What Would Martin Luther King Do? | Portside

What Would Martin Luther King Do? | Portside

State Spending Per Student at CSU and UC Remains Well Below Pre-Recession Levels, Despite Recent Increases - California Budget & Policy Center

State Spending Per Student at CSU and UC Remains Well Below Pre-Recession Levels, Despite Recent Increases - California Budget  Policy Center

Its Oklahomas' Teachers Turn to Strike | Portside

Its Oklahomas Turn to Strike | Portside



State austerity leads to teachers' strikes.  When unions are weak.