Articles Archive for February 2009

President Obama last night called for prompt action on energy, health care, education, and deficit reduction. We can achieve his goals more rapidly and easily if we start with income security for all. Regarding energy: Obama called on Congress to enact a cap on carbon to drive progress toward renewable energy sources. Caps will increase [...]

Arguments in favor of basic income are everywhere, just about, when we are willing to look. But too many people don’t look or won’t think about this idea, and their ignorance or blindness is what makes our campaign so challenging. Here’s something from former labor secretary Robert Reich, quoted in a respected liberal blog: One [...]

Some questions about President Obama’s budget, regarding each item and expenditure: Who benefits? Who, specifically, is getting our taxpayer money? Is that appropriate and cost-effective? Those are fairly obvious, though often not asked, and the answers typically come in a cloud of conventional assumptions and rhetoric. Here’s a fourth: Would that still make sense if [...]

The housing and home foreclosure “crisis” – that’s the word just about everyone is using – has been in the news a lot, with a surge of reporting in recent days. President Obama released his plan yesterday. Too bad almost no one’s talking about a BIG, the basic income guarantee, which would be much more [...]

Our national security may require us to enact income security for all. Here’s what Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress on February 12: “The primary near-term security concern” is the economic downturn. “The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests.” A [...]

Though Obama has not called for a guaranteed basic income, he said some things last night that clearly indicate the power and need for this idea: Our immediate job is to reduce the downward spiral. And that means putting money into consumers’ pockets. The bill he and Congress are working on, however, would put money [...]

The numbers have been the lead in many news reports over the past day — 598,000 jobs lost in January. The unemployment rate now 7.6 percent, a one-month jump from the already high 7.2 percent. Reading and listening to the news, it’s interesting to note the abstract, passive language. One formulation I like is “The [...]

Here’s some data from The Associated Press: “The country has seen sizable layoffs during the current recession, which began in December 2007. A net total of about 2.6 million jobs were lost last year.” “In another report, the government said that new jobless claims jumped far more than expected last week in an already dismal [...]

Everyone’s talking about taxes, it seems, and not just about tax cuts as part of the economic stimulus package. Here’s a Washington Post editorial about Tom Daschle’s errors and failure to pay. This New York Times editorial calls upon Daschle to withdraw his nomination. Daschle’s mistakes, like Tim Geithner’s, are a good argument for tax [...]

Republican Senator Richard Lugar, in an op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, called for “a revenue-neutral oil security tax” to treat our oil addiction. He wants to Take every penny collected at the pump and put it right back into the pockets of consumers. … The government could regularly send a check to everyone [...]