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Progressive Caucus Could Move Back to Single Chairperson
I suppose a lot of people here have little use for the Progressive Caucus. I wouldn’t venture to say they covered themselves in glory in this Congress. They still face problems of internal cohesion and...
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Not Just Cost Uniting Democrats on Ending Afghanistan War
Freshmen Congress Meet On Capitol Hill by TalkMediaNews Washington was buzzing yesterday about a Washington Post story about the cost of the war in Afghanistan, and how that may be a constraint on...
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Grijalva: If You Want to Reduce the Deficit, How About the People’s Budget
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has responded to President Barack Obama, who said progressives would have to be “sold” on deficit reduction. Specifically, he claimed that “if you are a...
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Gang of Six Boosted By Moody’s
As near as I can tell, the only thing the Gang of Six has made more likely is default. It’s essentially the same deal that Eric Cantor and John Boehner rejected because it included tax increases. Maybe...
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Democrats Lining Up in Support of More Populist Obama Stances
The biggest problem with the White House’s definitional strategy on the American Jobs Act was that Democrats didn’t really give it the full-throated support it needed to draw that contrast. By the end...
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Democrats Coming Home to #OccupyWallStreet, Producing Synergy of Action and...
More Democratic politicians embraced the #OccupyWallStreet protests today, supporting the core grievances of a broken economy and corporate influence as broadly similar to their own platforms. This...
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Congressional Progressive Caucus Introduces “Restore the American Dream for...
A passel of Occupy Wall Street activists will meet with leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus today, specifically about legislative issues: Ten organizers from New York’s OWS group will speak...
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Democrats Try to Reverse Stand Your Ground in Appropriations Bill
In the House appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice and Science that will get preliminary votes today, Progressive Caucus co-chairs Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva will introduce a “Stop Shoot First...
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Contra the Deficit Scolds, We Can Keep Medicare and Medicaid Strong Simply By...
This diatribe bestowed upon Rep. Raul Grijalva on CNBC, which has become Fiscal Cliff TV, is really priceless, with the anchor accusing Grijalva of tanking the market because he refuses to cut...
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Deficit-Obsessed Media Leaves Unemployment Story at the Side of the Road
Not to harp on Raul Grijalva, but his media critique in this op-ed is spot-on, even if you strip away the partisan lens through which he frames this. The real story is that we have a jobs shortage...
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Republicans’ Latest Super Committee Offer is a 181:1 Ratio of Spending Cuts...
Republicans apparently just submitted a last-ditch effort to get agreement on the Super Committee. It was a $545 billion proposal, less than half of the minimum requirement to avoid all of the...
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Super Committee Preparing Decent Burial
I was on Mark Thompson’s show on Sirius XM radio on Friday, and I said at that time that there’s a better chance of Herman Cain knowing what he’s talking about on Libya than the Super Committee coming...
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Enough: Stock Market Drops Have Nothing to Do With Super Committee FAIL
I tweeted last night, “When bad news from Europe tomorrow makes stocks tank, and the idiots in DC blame it on Super Committee fail, could someone correct them?” Apparently, no one told the AP or...
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Trigger Cuts Would Add Layer of Austerity to Non-Defense Budget Come 2013
With the failure of the Super Committee just a terse press release away, members of Congress have already started the important work of getting rid of the defense cuts triggered by that failure. John...
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Why Were Expiring Stimulus Measures Expected to Pass in Super Committee?
There’s an emerging meme that I noticed yesterday, actually, occasioning the demise of the Super Committee. For some reason, lots of commentators are making a major assumption that cannot be proven....
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FAIL: Super Committee Announces Defeat
The co-chairs of the Super Committee, Patty Murray and Jeb Hensarling, quietly admitted defeat today, in an official statement. I will reproduce it below in full. “After months of hard work and intense...
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Obama Threatens Veto on Undoing Trigger Cuts
President Obama positioned himself well politically in his statement on the demise of the Super Committee yesterday, particularly with this passage: One way or another, we will be trimming the deficit...
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Do-Nothing Option on Deficits Finally Gets Noticed
I like that only now, after nearly two years of deficit fearmongering, does the New York Times bother to mention that doing nothing on the deficit will reduce the deficit far more than any deal. The...
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Waxman: Administration Endorsed Selling VA Property in West LA
During the Super Committee negotiations last year, Republicans proposed, and the White House endorsed, the sale of a sprawling Veterans Administration campus in West Los Angeles that Democrats have...
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Boehner’s Counter-Offer: Based on Impromptu Bowles Super Committee Testimony
Speaker John BoehnerIn trying to make a quick understanding of the Boehner counter-offer on the fiscal slope yesterday, I knew that his reference to the “Bowles plan” was not a reference to...
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