I don’t know if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or House Speaker John Boehner read much history.
But this old history teacher wonders if the GOP’s stubborn refusal to seriously negotiate with the Democrats over the sequester cuts is more cribbing from Andy Jackson’s 1824 political playbook.
That year, Old Hickory lost the presidency to John Quincy Adams. Immediately, Jackson set out to make Adams a one-termer.
Jackson sent the word to pro-Jackson members of Congress: If Adams is for it, oppose it. If he’s against it, support it.
Jackson unseated Adams in 1828.
No sooner was Barack Obama elected president in 2008 than McConnell said the GOP’s top political priority was beating him in 2012. “Amens” rose from Boehner and the rest of the party. GOP lawmakers got their marching orders: If Obama’s for it, we’re not, and vice versa.
» Read more about: History Games: The Sequester as Punishment »
Searching for Sugar Man, the Oscar-winning documentary film by Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul, hits you in the heart. You walk out of the theater feeling the world can be redeemed — and that it is possible for a person to be recognized for their talents and contributions even after years of obscurity and seeming inconsequence. If it could happen to a musician called Rodriguez then, perhaps, it could happen to the hundreds of other equally talented and modest people in this world.
Sixto Rodriguez, so named because he was the sixth child born to his mother, was a handsome, lithe, enigmatic singer/songwriter in 1970s Detroit who released two albums of haunting, alienated songs and then seemingly sank into oblivion. Except one of his albums made it to Cape Town, South Africa and got passed hand to hand where its songs were picked up by the anti-apartheid music scene as anthems of a sort for a generation.
» Read more about: Films in Review: “Searching for Sugar Man” »
Growing up, I saw Leimert Park as our version of Harlem: the center of commerce, music and culture for the African-American community in Los Angeles. The last time I was in Leimert Park, I saw shuttered storefronts and empty sidewalks — a stark difference from the hustle and bustle I knew from growing up not far from there. I am sure that it is even more of a shock for the generations of Crenshaw residents before me.
We now have an opportunity to revitalize this once economically thriving community, though, via the Crenshaw/LAX Line, a $1.8 billion light-rail project expected to start construction in early 2014. There is a catch – a Leimert Park station, which would be the crown jewel of the line, is startlingly missing from current plans. There needs to be a Leimert Park station.
Last May, community residents and advocates packed the Metro board room in hopes of hearing good news about the inclusion of their community in the proposed stations.
Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 14,270 – completely erasing its 54 percent loss between 2007 and 2009.
The stock market is basically back to where it was in 2000, while corporate earnings have doubled since then.
Yet the real median wage is now eight percent below what it was in 2000, and unemployment remains sky-high.
Why is the stock market doing so well, while most Americans are doing so poorly? Four reasons:
First, productivity gains. Corporations have been investing in technology rather than their workers. They get tax credits and deductions for such investments; they get no such tax benefits for improving the skills of their employees. As a result, corporations can now do more with fewer people on their payrolls. That means higher profits.
Second, high unemployment itself. Joblessness all but eliminates the bargaining power of most workers – allowing corporations to keep wages low.
» Read more about: Wall Street: Bull Market for Stocks, Bear Cave for Workers »
Last week, we reported on the legal struggle at port trucking company Seacon Logix, whose drivers filed claims with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) seeking reimbursement for a number of wage-and- hour violations, including illegal paycheck deductions made by the company. After the DLSE ruled in favor of the drivers in early 2012 – finding that the drivers were not independent contractors, but were actually misclassified employees – the company appealed the ruling.
On Thursday, a California Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the drivers in every respect, coming to the same conclusions as the DLSE. The court found that drivers were misclassified and ordered the company to pay the four drivers $107,802. Five additional drivers at the same company have similar claims pending.
This is the first in an anticipated wave of rulings addressing conditions for misclassified port truck drivers.
» Read more about: Court: Seacon Logix Port Truck Drivers Are Misclassified »
In societies across the globe, men demonstrate their manhood in different ways. There are many wonderful tracts on the topic. However, in the culture of Washington DC, the best way to demonstrate your manhood is to express your willingness to cut Medicare and Social Security. There is no better way to be admitted into the club of the Very Serious People.
This is the reason that we saw White House spokesman Jay Carney tell a press conference. He told the reporters that President Obama is still willing to cut Social Security benefits by using the chained Consumer Price Index as the basis for the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA). This willingness to cut the benefits of retirees establishes President Obama as a serious person in elite Washington circles.
While most of the DC insiders probably don’t understand the chained CPI, everyone else should recognize that this technical fix amounts to a serious cut in benefits.
» Read more about: Why the Chained Consumer Price Index Threatens Our Elderly »
When President Obama proposed an increase in the federal minimum wage last month, you could almost hear conservative economists and pundits smacking their lips in anticipation. After all, there’s nothing that gets this crowd going like mandating a wage increase, even if it’s from the downright Dickensian $7.25 currently required, to a still paltry $9 — or just under $19,000 a year.
Minimum wage foes almost always base their opposition on the supposed damage that these laws do to the businesses that have to pay them and the workers who receive them. Despite reams of research to the contrary, they persist in claiming that minimum wage increases force businesses to lay off workers, hurting the very people who should benefit.
There is another argument, however, against minimum wage laws, one that was trotted out in a column by Slate’s Matt Yglesias. The real problem with these laws is not that they hurt workers and their employers,
» Read more about: The Right to Be Poor: Matt Yglesias’ View of Minimum Wage Laws »
Sustainable economies are built on good jobs. If people don’t earn enough money, they can’t keep the economy growing by buying goods and services.
This basic fact is lost on opponents of minimum-wage increases, who for decades have been arguing that these pay hikes hurt businesses, cause job loss and therefore are bad for the economy.
Repetition of an argument might keep it in the news, but it doesn’t make it factually credible. So it is with minimum-wage rejectionists, who have succeeded in getting at least equal time for their assertions with every proposed wage increase, even though their claims have been debunked over and over again.
It is no surprise, then, that the Reason Foundation’s Adam Summers in his op-ed in the Business Journal predicts dire consequences if California were to increase its minimum wage law (“Higher Minimum Wage Will Lower Job Prospects,” February 11).
» Read more about: Raising the Minimum Wage Will Lift the Economy »
If you watched any one of the recent Los Angeles mayoral debates, you likely concluded that the biggest issue in this election is who voters can trust to get the city’s fiscal house in order.
But what does it really mean to be a good fiscal watchdog in the city of Los Angeles? As a long-time city commissioner and community leader, I have found that the biggest demonstration of strong leadership is the willingness to stand up to the powerful corporate interests and their lobbyists, who continue to dominate most of the decisions made at City Hall.
In 2012, “clients” spent more than $35 million on lobbyists hired to influence City Hall decision-makers. For-profit corporations accounted for more than $31 million of that. Unions spent less than $700,000 on paid lobbyists. The list of companies paying lobbyists to represent their interests at City Hall is a Who’s Who of corporate America.
» Read more about: Our Next Mayor Must Stand Up to Corporate Lobbyists »
(This article, which first appeared on Equal Voice, includes information from Equal Voice News reporter Kathy Mulady and Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler, Jim Kuhnhenn and Stephen Ohlemacher. Please see Equal Voice’s infographic at the end of this post. Republished with permission.)
Unless sequestration is stopped by an act of Congress, the budget cutting will [contine], reducing funding to thousands of programs that took years to build, and provide a safety net for millions of poor working families.
Under the plan, every dollar approved each year by Congress [will] be slashed by a uniform amount, resulting in at least temporary layoffs for hundreds of thousands of public and private-sector workers. Programs like Medicare and Social Security are exempt, but the slashing of other programs will slow the nation’s fragile economic recovery.
On March 1 automatic cuts of $85 billion from a $3.6 trillion budget [began].
» Read more about: The Sequester: Families and Kids Not on Congress’ Agenda »