Archive
Wall Street’s Back Pockets
What’s so Great About Freedom from Health Care?
The tea party is made up of a lot of disparate elements–anti-abortion, anti-taxes, anti-immigration, anti-health-care expansion, anti-government in general. If it weren’t for guns, they wouldn’t be pro anything.
Tax Policy: Maybe It’s Time to Start Over
Some serious and high-minded rich people calling themselves “Wealth for the Common Good” think they might ought to pay higher taxes. Not only themselves of course, but all upper-income Americans as well. Got bucks? Pony up! As you might expect, this feeling is not rampant among the prosperous set, so it is good for their personal safety that the “Wealthers” cannot be readily identified by hair color, tattoos, or other insignia.
Which Mitch Do You Believe?
Mitch-the-the-prairie-populist is publicly pretending to be fighting Wall Street, while Mitch-the-bankers’-buddy is privately shaking them down for campaign cash in exchange for being on their team. Who could be cynical about that?
Greed in the Suites Gets a New Yardstick
During the Great Depression, a pay package for the top executive at National City Bank–the Wall Street giant we know today as Citigroup–scandalized the nation. It clocked in at more than $1 million, sparking an angry Congress to make corporations disclose their top executive salaries. Today, CEOs regularly rake in more than $20 million a year. But another landmark leap on executive pay disclosure could be around the corner. Congress may shortly shine the brightest light yet on executive pay excess, thanks to a simple little amendment introduced by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
Congress: Rescue the Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act protected the nation’s waters for decades, from the Great Lakes and Mississippi River, to small headwater streams and associated wetlands. Yet Congress and the Supreme Court have allowed the act to falter for the past nine years.
Remembering Dorothy Height
Dr. Dorothy Height was a lantern and role model for millions of women and a long-haul social change agent, blessed with uncommon commitment and talent. Her fingerprints are quietly embedded in many of the transforming events of the last seven decades as African Americans, women, and children pushed open and walked through previously closed doors of opportunity.
My organization, Children’s Defense Fund, was blessed to have her serve on our board for over 30 years. When she passed away on April 20 at 98, we all lost a treasure, a wise counselor, and a rock we could always lean against for support in tough times.
Cornering the Seed Market
It’s Economics 101, and the National Family Farm Coalition points out what happens with the consolidation of the seed industry.
Senate Emissions
The Other 95 Percent
The next time you read about another tea party protest convened to decry the tax bogeyman, log on to “The Other 95%” website (http://theother95.com).
