Sarah Solon

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Harris Tocracy writes a snarky piece from the prospective of a billionaire grateful for our economic policies:

Tax work, not wealth. Corporate tax is like governmental regulation: It gets in the way of the invisible hand of the market -- and the invisible hand needs to be free to pick your pocket! Since 2001, over 82 corporations paid no tax for at least one year. Using Enron bookkeeping, some corporations like Boeing and Unisys even got a rebate! We've got it where the taxpayers pay us! Billionaires never had it so good! In addition, tax on our personal wealth has dropped: Capital gains tax has dropped, the top dividend tax has dropped, and the top estate tax rate has dropped. To keep the money flowing to us, you uneducated peasants are having to pay more and more for healthcare and other social services. You are mortgaging your future to support us. How dear!

Editor's Cut at the Nation has a great piece on the successes of progressive think tanks on the state level (including interviews and profiles of specific organizations), arguing that they provide a strong and much more robust policy counterweight to the age-old ideas of conservative think tanks that focus on the national level:

Yes, it's true, rightwing think tanks have been effective through their ideological discipline and ample resources. But the progressive community recognizes the importance of defining issues and advancing a policy agenda, too. There is now a network of savvy progressive think tanks working at the state level - and they are winning. So here's a modest proposal: perhaps it's time for the paper of record to create a beat on the progressive movement.

Working Life stops to ponder the perhaps dirty complexity of a policy proposal progressives are generally quick to endorse and fight for: if we raise the minimum wage to $7.25 over two years - as the Democratic initiative would do - isn't it a problem that those making the minimum wage will still be living in poverty? Working Life wonders if this is the best we can do:

An economic agenda that effectively says to millions of people, "sorry, the best we can do is make poverty a bit less onerous." And, beyond the political parties, I would ask my friends in labor: isn't it our duty to raise holy hell about such a mediocre proposal? Even in families where both parents work at minimum-wage jobs, this hike still is meager since you have to figure in child-care costs, not to mention the devastating burden of health care bills (minimum wage jobs either don't offer health care at all or give workers access to an over-priced plan with pathetic coverage). This is what we will trumpet if and when it passes?

The people know something is wrong. They know they can't pay their bills and their personal debt is reaching staggering levels, that they don't have health care, that jobs are disappearing, and that they can't afford to retire. They know corporations have too much power, even if the can't put their fingers on a solution to the threat and are afraid that the solution might mean losing their jobs. And the hoopla around raising the minimum wage is only clouding the picture.

SCOTUS blog offers an analysis of the recent Supreme Court decision that "a drug crime that is a felony under state law but only a misdemeanor under federal law is not kind the kind of offense that triggers mandatory deportation." This decision, according to the New York Times, will result in fewer aggravated felony convictions for drug crimes for undocumented immigrants, convictions which have "dire consequences for a noncitizen, including automatic deportation without the usual rights of appeal and a permanent bar against returning to the United States."

Sarah Solon: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 7:47 AM, Dec 08, 2006 in Blog Stroll
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