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This Week in OtherWords: November 13, 2013
This week in OtherWords, Peter Hart debunks the myth of a "grand bargain" that requires Social Security benefit cuts, Jim Hightower points out that taxpayers shouldn't help JPMorgan Chase cover the cost of its $13 billion in fines, and Jill Richardson encourages...
Grand Bargain or Raw Deal?
Following the government shutdown drama, politicians in Washington appear hopelessly divided, according to conventional wisdom. Fair enough. But there's at least one area where many politicians from both of the major parties agree — and many of the TV talking heads...
ENDA and the Golden Rule
You probably don't think twice about sharing a photo of your loved ones at work or talking with coworkers about vacation plans with your family. But for some Americans, these simple acts put their jobs and livelihoods at risk. Here’s why. Though eight out of 10...
This Year, Have a Big-Poultry-Free Holiday Season
Chicken and turkey are among the most popular and versatile foods Americans eat, but they also bring health risks to your plate. Most factory-farmed poultry is raised with antibiotics — which leads to antibiotic resistance in humans. Now, the USDA wants to cut the...
Drawing a Lesson from Colorado’s Conflicting Tax Votes
“School Tax Fails.” That was the Denver Post’s lead headline the day after two-thirds of Colorado voters defeated a ballot initiative that would have raised the state’s income tax to fund K-12 public education. In smaller type, readers found news of another state-wide...
Taking Stock of the Most Affluent Among Us
How unequal have workplaces in the United States become? Our best answer happens to come from a source you might not expect: the Social Security Administration. Social Security statisticians each year tally up how much compensation gets reported on W-2s, the forms...
Who Deserves Our Thanks for Truly American Food?
What do turkey, sweet potatoes, and cranberries have in common? Yes, you eat them on Thanksgiving. Additionally, they are all distinctly American foods. So are potatoes and the corn in your corn bread. Believe it or not, the day that Columbus blundered into the...
Paying for Corporate Crime on the Taxpayer’s Dime
Sometimes, a news story can be so crammed with irony that it boggles the mind. Consider just the headline on one such story that ran recently in my town's daily paper: "Man gets 10 years for defrauding banks." That just screams for a rewrite, doesn't it? I yearn for a...
Why Politicians Shouldn’t Fear Getting an F from the NRA
As plenty of unarmed Americans have deduced, our gun-toting brethren live in a propaganda-induced nightmare world. They envision armed, foul-smelling villains either breaking into their snug homes or menacing them on the street. In response, our gunslingers plan to...
Fixing Social Security
