The War on Public Employees
By David DayenOver the weekend, the New York Times published a piece that follows a trend of vilifying public employees, in this case for their pensions. Being involved with California politics as I was, I can tell you that the wingnuts here find no greater joy than in demonizing state workers, all of which in their minds are greedy money-grubbers destroying the state from within. They have used this story about the city of Bell in the Los Angeles area, admittedly a story about thieves who ripped off their own citizens and the state pension fund, and spun it into a story about everyone who carries a government paycheck making $800,000 a year.
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Two Very Different Approaches to Job Creation
By Robert CruickshankCarla Marinucci takes a look at how the four major statewide candidates would create jobs and, although she provides a good discussion of the details, her article seems to miss the bigger picture.
Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina's approach to job creation is quite different from that of Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. These differences have a number of aspects, but can be boiled down to this:
Brown/Boxer believe that the government has a clear role to play in creating jobs by providing by investing in both working people and in creating the 21st century infrastructure they need to prosper - whereas Whitman/Fiorina believe mass unemployment and further concentration of wealth in the hands of the small elite that already dominate the economy will provide "growth," even at the expense of our basic social and physical infrastructure.
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Tax Cuts Are Theft
By Dave JohnsonConservatives like to say that taxes are theft. In fact it is tax cuts that are theft because they break a long-standing contract.
The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract. Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?
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