Paul Ryan’s Regressiveness Part II - Robert Reich

Austerity economics — of which Ryan’s upcoming budget is the most extreme version — is a cruel hoax. 

Republicans lost the election but they still shape what’s debated in Washington — the federal budget deficit and so-called “fiscal responsibility.”

The White House’s and the Democrat’s continuing failure to reshape that debate has lead directly and logically to Paul Ryan’s budget plan this week, which is a more regressive version of the same plan American voters resoundingly rejected last November.

Sadly, the President is playing into the GOP’s hands with a new round of negotiations over a “grand bargain.”  Despite February’s encouraging job numbers, the major challenge is still jobs, wages, growth, and widening inequality — not deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility.

Austerity economics — of which Ryan’s upcoming budget is the most extreme version — is a cruel hoax. Cruel because it hurts most those who are already hurting; a hoax because it doesn’t work.

So why even try for a “grand bargain” that won’t deal with these fundamentals but only further legitimize the GOP mythology and further mislead the public about what’s really at stake?

The full article is available here

You: Doing More With Less, Corporate Profits: Going Strong

What's good for American business isn't necessarily good for Americans.

The Dow hit a record high this week, but who's winning? In all the chatter about our "jobless recovery," how often does someone explain the simple feat by which this is actually accomplished?

US productivity increased twice as fast in 2009 as it had in 2008, and twice as fast again in 2010: workforce down, output up, and voilá! No wonder corporate profits are up 22 percent since 2007.  Americans' disposable income has inched ahead 1.4% by comparison.  So far in this recovery, corporations have captured an unusually high share of the income gains.

The word "productivity" is a term insidious in both its usage and creep. And so we kowtow to—nay, embrace—a cultural maxim that just happens to be enormously convenient to corporate America. The not-so-subtle implication is always: Don't you want to be a productive member of society? 

Except what's good for American business isn't necessarily good for Americans. We're not just working smarter, but harder. And harder. And harder, to the point where the driver is no longer American industriousness, but something much more predatory.

Just counting work that's on the books (never mind those 11 pm emails), Americans now put in an average of 122 more hours per year than Brits, and 378 hours (nearly 10 weeks!) more than Germans. The differential isn't solely accounted for by longer hours, of course—worldwide, almost everyone except us has, at least on paper, a right to weekends off, paid vacation time and paid maternity leave. (The only other countries that don't mandate paid time off for new moms are Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Samoa, and Swaziland.)

The full article is available here

The Sequester & The Tea Party Plot - Robert Reich

Sequestration is only the start.

Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population.

Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government.

Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But take a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you’d be forgiven if you see parallels.

Sequestration is only the start. What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government — “drown it in the bathtub,” in the words of their guru Grover Norquist – slashing Social Security and Medicare, ending worker protections we’ve had since the 1930s, eroding civil rights and voting rights, terminating programs that have helped the poor for generations, and making it impossible for the government to invest in our future.

The full article is available here