As sequester cuts start to bite a little harder, the Fix the Debt gang is pushing for a "grand bargain," deep cuts to earned benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare in exchange for some vague promises about "tax reform."
In our new report on Fix the Debt, CMD reveals that part of the Fix the Debt's hidden corporate agenda is to push for new tax loopholes that would actually add to the deficit. Specifically, many Fix the Debt firms want to exempt money made offshore from taxation in the United States. Opening this new loophole would cost the Treasury some $1 trillion over 10 years according to Citizens for Tax Justice.
Campaign for America's Future writer Richard Eskow puts two important headlines together from this week, about the budget cuts which will go into effect on Friday harming average Americans and the poor and the ongoing corporate welfare the U.S. government is handing out to the "too big to fail" banks on a daily basis.
Last week, the Center for Media and Democracy and The Nation magazine worked together to publish a package in The Nation and a new online wiki resource on Pete Peterson and the Campaign to Fix the Debt, an entity we consider an "astroturf supergroup" with a huge budget working hard to create the fantasy that Americans care more about national debt and deficits than jobs and the economy. Fix the Debt is currently exploiting the "sequester" debate in Congress to encourage steep cuts to incredibly popular social programs like Medicare and Social Security.
by Dave Saldana
In Ontario, 465 union workers used to make locomotive engines. Then Indiana passed ALEC's anti-union legislation, and Caterpillar moved the works to Muncie. And that's bad for everybody.
Wisconsin is one of the highest-performing states in the country when it comes to election administration, but some state Republicans are falling behind a partisan national effort to attack the state's voting procedures and narrow access to the ballot box. "Rig the Vote," a new report from the Center for Media and Democracy and Citizen Action of Wisconsin, examines how proposed changes to Wisconsin's voting practices threaten the state's free and fair elections and are part of a cynical national effort to manipulate the electoral system for partisan gain.
In a testament to the power of independent media, the award-winning public television show Frontline this week helped push a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official out the door.
David Koch's Americans for Prosperity (AFP) chapter in Wisconsin is throwing its support behind a proposed mine in the state's far North. A mining bill -- almost identical to the one that failed last year in the Wisconsin State Senate -- was reintroduced this week in the state legislature. What changed? Republicans picked up two more Senate seats in 2012, which may give mining supporters the slim margin they need.
Missing the fiscal cliff? Don't know what to talk about at the dinner table?
Get ready, the Bipartisan Policy Center has predicted that on February 15, 2013, the U.S. Treasury will take in an estimated $9 billion in revenue, but is committed to pay out $52 billion.
For better or worse, a bill passed Congress in the wee hours of 2013 averting the much-hyped "fiscal cliff" for now and raising taxes on couples making over $450,000 and extending a lifeline of unemployment benefits to 2 million Americans.
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