Howard Dean kicks Republican ass:
Category: Class War
‘Conscience protection’
I only took a quick glance at the regulation, but it looks like the Obama administration has rescinded the far-too-general part of the so-called conscience clause that allowed pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions.
Good! He should do stuff like this more often.
The biggest assault
No one puts Baby in the corner
Is there any doubt in any of your minds as to how this turns out?
Reporting from Washington — Proposed limits on the hidden fees behind most debit card purchases — caps designed to bring down prices for consumers — could be changed or delayed after an outcry from the financial industry and lawmakers.
Every time a debit card is swiped, the merchant pays the bank an average of 44 cents to process the transaction. The Federal Reserve, saying the actual cost was drastically lower, proposed in December to cut the fee that large banks charge to 12 cents per transaction.
The Fed’s proposal has sparked a major battle between bankers and retailers. On Thursday, Congress and financial regulators weighed in, with the Fed even suggesting that the rules could be revised before they take effect in April.
“We are committed to doing everything we can to get this right,” Federal Reserve Gov. Sarah Bloom Raskin told a House subcommittee.
Retailers persuaded Congress last year to limit the fees, complaining that banks were gouging them in processing debit card transactions that have become increasingly popular among consumers.
The financial overhaul law required the Fed to set so-called debit card interchange fees for large banks that are “reasonable and proportional” to the costs of processing the transactions, and implement them by April.But bankers decried the limit the Fed proposed, saying it would force them to eliminate free checking accounts or increase other fees on customers.
Class war
On Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky answers a question from a student about how to get Democratic leaders to take part in the Wisconsin demonstrations:
The reason why you can’t get Democratic leaders to join is because they agree. They are also trying to destroy the unions. In fact, if you take a look at—take, say, the lame-duck session. The great achievement in the lame-duck session for which Obama is greatly praised by Democratic Party leaders is that they achieved bipartisan agreement on several measures. The most important one was the tax cut. And the issue in the tax cut—there was only one issue—should there be a tax cut for the very rich? The population was overwhelmingly against it, I think about two to one. There wasn’t even a discussion of it, they just gave it away. And the very same time, the less noticed was that Obama declared a tax increase for federal workers. Now, it wasn’t called a “tax increase”; it’s called a “freeze.” But if you think for 30 seconds, a freeze on pay for a federal workers is fiscally identical to a tax increase for federal workers. And when you extend it for five years, as he said later, that means a decrease, because of population growth, inflation and so on. So he basically declared an increase in taxes for federal workers at the same time that there’s a tax decrease for the very rich.
And there’s been a wave of propaganda over the last couple of months, which is pretty impressive to watch, trying to deflect attention away from those who actually created the economic crisis, like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, their associates in the government who—Federal Reserve and others—let all this go on and helped it. There’s a—to switch attention away from them to the people really responsible for the crisis—teachers, police, firefighters, sanitation workers, their huge pensions, their incredible healthcare benefits, Cadillac healthcare benefits, and their unions, who are the real villains, the ones who are robbing the taxpayer by making sure that policemen may not starve when they retire. And this is pretty amazing, like right in the middle of the Madison affair, which is critical.
The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, got a $12.5 million bonus, and his base pay was more than tripled. Well, that means he—the rules of corporate governments have been modified in the last 30 years by the U.S. government to allow the chief executive officer to pretty much set their own salaries. There’s various ways in which this has been done, but it’s government policy. And one of the effects of it is—people talk about inequality, but what’s a little less recognized is that although there is extreme inequality, it’s mostly because of the top tiny fraction of the population, so like a fraction of one percent of the population, their wealth has just shot through the stratosphere. You go down to the—you know, the next 10 percent are doing pretty well, but it’s not off the spectrum. And this is by design.
Damn those librarians for crashing the economy
You have to give Gov. Walker and his wealthy patrons credit. Here we have a situation where Wall Street fat cats wrecked the economy – people like Richard Fuld, Robert Rubin, and Angelo Mozilo – and they’ve somehow managed to blame schoolteachers and the highway patrol.
Now we have a situation where the villains are sitting on their hundreds of millions of dollars, while tough guys like Gov. Walker are beating up school teachers to take away their $2,000 a month pension. And, the best part of the story is the Walkers are being heralded as statesmen for their efforts.
This situation speaks to the incredible corruption of U.S. politics. There have been numerous studies done by serious economists that all show the same thing, public sector employees are not paid on average more than their private sector counterparts.
Continue reading “Damn those librarians for crashing the economy”
Why isn’t Wall Street in jail?
Matt Taibbi asks the question:
Bread and circuses
Peter Orzag is a condescending asshole who would rather resort to gimmicks than admit that the American working class has been underpaid and overworked for thirty years. But hey, he’s a millionaire now!
Peter Orszag, now a new vice-chairman of global banking at Citigroup and former US Office of Management and Budget under Barack Obama, has written a provocative and (with all due respect, Peter) wrong-headed Financial Times oped proposing that the way to promote savings among America’s low-income workers is to attach the prospect of winning millions to them scurrying away a few dollars here and there — sort of a lottery ticket that goes into their savings rather than into state coffers to help subsidize education or to the profits of the local milk and cigarette stand.
My local paper
Brendan points out this editorial in yesterday’s Daily News:
HERE’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT to know about President Obama’s 2012 budget: It has absolutely no chance of passing.
But his proposal – all 2,304 pages of it – tells a sad tale. In fact, it’s pretty much a horror story.
Remember, even when the president had an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress to work with, he couldn’t get his fiscal 2011 budget through. The federal government is operating only because Congress passed a “continuing resolution” (CR) in December. It’s due to expire March 4.
And House Republicans are demanding $100 billion in federal spending cuts this year in exchange for passing another CR to keep the government open. If they don’t get what they want – and Obama has threatened to veto the CR because the cuts are too deep – Republicans say they will shut government down.
Many of the Republican proposals are quite insane- slashing community policing, NASA, Amtrak, and research into alternative energy. In addition, the cuts would reduce food-safety inspections and weaken protections for clean drinking water. A proposed $1.7 billion cut to the Social Security Administration would shut it for 20 days, meaning the checks wouldn’t be mailed. Especially telling: a proposed $747 million cut to the Women, Infant and Children program that provides nutritional food to pregnant women. Now there’s an example of conservatives’ fierce love for the unborn.
It is against this frenzied anti-government backdrop that Obama unveiled his proposed budget, and the theme couldn’t be clearer: Just a few weeks after extending tax cuts for rich people – adding $868 billion to the deficit – Obama wants to get it back from poor people.
Continue reading “My local paper”
Finally
As the crowds of protesters grow to more than 30,000, Obama finally gets out in front of the Wisconsin union movement and actually takes a side:
President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin’s broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits while planning similar action in other state capitals.
Obama accused Scott Walker, the state’s new Republican governor, of unleashing an “assault” on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would nullify collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.
The president’s political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.
Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.
By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were working to organize additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Under Walker’s plan, most public workers – excluding police, firefighters and state troopers – would have to pay half of their pension costs and at least 12 percent of their health-care costs. They would lose bargaining rights for anything other than pay. Walker, who took office last month, says the emergency measure is needed to save $300 million over the next two years to help close a $3.6 billion budget gap.
“Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions,” Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter, taking the unusual step of inviting a local station into the White House for a sit-down interview. “I think everybody’s got to make some adjustments, but I think it’s also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.”
The White House political operation, Organizing for America, got involved Monday, after Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, a party official said.
The group made phone calls, distributed messages via Twitter and Facebook, and sent e-mails to its state and national lists to try to build crowds for rallies Wednesday and Thursday, a party official said.